Monday, July 30, 2012
You are saved by grace alone!
We know this fact well. Many of us have known it all our lives. Yet we can never fully plumb the depths of God's amazing grace. This week we want to look at our salvation by grace from beginning to end in order to gain a better understanding of that truth and to grow in our appreciation of it and our praise to God.
Ephesians 1:3-4 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.
PURE GRACE IN GOD'S CHOICE
That last statement boggles the mind, and it may raise questions we can’t fully answer, but think about the wonderful truth that we have been
chosen by God even before He created the world.
In this world we usually choose people or things based on their qualities and value. We pick the best looking vegetables. We choose the best athletes for our team, etc. That's not the case with God. He does not look at the people in the world and pick the best looking, or the nicest, or the most reliable or anything else. He chose us before the foundation of the world, long before we were born or had a chance to show what we might have to offer.
Some imagine that God, in His infinite wisdom, looked into the future and saw the people who would believe, and therefore He chose them. That would mean that God chose us because of some value and worth in us, because we were more noble and willing to believe than others. It gives us the credit for our election.
However, that contradicts the clear words of scripture which says that all people are equally sinners who have fallen short of the glory of God; that "There is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one" (Romans 3:11-12).
Not to mention that we were all "dead in our trespasses and sins." There are not different degrees of dead. We had no free will, no power or ability to choose God or come to faith.
On what basis did God choose us? Look ahead to vss. 5b-6, "According to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved."
He chose us by grace. God could see into the future all right, but He did not see anything noble or worthy in us. He saw our corrupt nature. He saw our rebellious actions. He saw that even after all He would do for us we would continue to sin against Him. Yet He chose us "in Him," that is in Christ purely because He wanted to show us His grace and mercy in Christ and give us what we do not deserve -- eternal life instead of eternal torment in hell.
Why did God choose me? I can't imagine, but I will praise God forever that He did. Amazing grace!
