Grace

You know something I’ll never quite fully understsand?

Grace.

I feel like until the last few months, I didn’t really know what it was. I knew about it, but it was just a Christian word to me and part of a catechism.

Unmerited favor. Getting something I don’t deserve. How we’re saved through faith (Eph. 2:8). But it wasn’t real to me.

I recently read this:

” Our only commandment is to love God and to love others. Grace is the communication of that love…{and}grace acceptance is never based upon any qualification of the recipient, but only the character of the giver”.

HOLY COW. Aren’t you thankful that absolutely NOTHING we do determines whether or not we receive grace? If we are saved ” from his fullness, we are given grace upon grace” (John 1:16).

Picture this: grace like waves in the ocean. One overtakes you, you stand back up and another one knocks you down washing over you. That’s the constant grace upon grace we receive every day!

It’s easy to think of grace in terms of luck. You barely avoid being in a car wreck, you get accepted into a program that’s nearly possible to get into, you meet the dreamiest guy, you somehow land the job of your dreams or get a $35,000 check from Publisher’s Clearing House. Ok, maybe not the last one.

But my point is, when times are good, we thank God for his grace to us- for giving us something we don’t deserve. But what about when we aren’t in those situations? When you’re struggling financially, don’t have a job, or are rejected by family and friends isn’t it easy to just completely miss his grace?

Our flesh creeps in and feeds us lies. Soon we start to wonder why we’re being punished or why someone else gets something we want or need. And the comparison only gives us discontentment.

We completely lose sight of the truth and the fact that we’re given grace upon grace every single day regardless of the good or bad going on in our lives. The grace that is a GIFT and something we don’t deserve.

Every day we have life and being is a day full of grace. We deserve hell and separation from the one who created and loves us. But you know what we get instead?

Grace.