Gods Child

THE GRACE OF GOD

(Eph 2:4-10 KJVR)  But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) 6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:  7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.  8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:  9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.  10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

On Monday we learned about our sins and that we all sin.  Today’s topic is grace.  This is one of those words we hear all the time but, what does it really mean?  What does the grace of God mean for me?  The word grace is our key.   And while we are at it what does quickened and works mean here?  One of the keys to understanding the Bible, which is God’s Word to us, is to know what a word means.  Speaking for myself, I get lazy and just go with what I think it means only to find out later I was wrong and it means so much more. 

Let’s look at what Paul is telling us one verse at a time.   

1.     Verse 4 we find that God is rich in mercy which means He is full of love and forgiveness.  Your child breaks your favorite lamp.  You do not punish him; instead you forgive him and give him another chance.  He deserved to be punished for his carelessness.  You chose to forgive just as our Father chooses to forgive us for no reason2.     Verse 5 God did not care that we were dead because of our sins we were committing.  He made us alive just like He raised Christ from the dead; we too have been raised from the dead.  He did this because He wanted to not because He had to.  Grace is undeserved favor.  When you ground your children to their room and you decide to lift their punishment early without them asking not because they have been good but because you feel generous and have mercy or pity on them.   Yes God pities us.  He knows we are but dust and that is why He has mercy on us.  3.     Verse 6 God has lifted us up out of life of sin, cleaned us thoroughly and made us to where we sit in heavenly places.  Paul is speaking of our spirit in this verse.  Though we have an earth bound body we now have a spirit that resides in heavenly places.  Our thoughts have changed.  As I am writing this even I am finally getting a clearer understanding.  4.     Verse 7 refers to ages to come.  We must remember that Paul is writing this letter around the year 60AD.  He is referring here to earthly time periods that were in his future much like we today say, “in the years to come”.   Paul said that God wanted to show future generations how merciful He was.5.     Verses 8 and 9 tell us that we were saved just because God wanted to.  We do not deserve it; we can not possibly ever be good enough to earn it.  We are only saved because we believe God’s Word.  We have faith.6.     Verse 10 explains that as believers we have now been created to do the good works that God had already planned for us to do.  We were saved to do good works not because of the good works we have already done. 

In conclusion we find that God took pity on us.  He loved us so much that He made a way, through Jesus Christ, to save us from our sins.  This is not something we can earn by being good.  On our own we can never be good enough.  We are saved because of our belief that Jesus died in our place and was raised from the dead.  Because we believe this we do good works.  That is what Jesus wants us to do.  This is the “grace of God”, His unmerited favor on our lives.

Check back later.  I want to get into verse 6 a little deeper and I would like for you to join me.  Thank all of you for your wonderful comments.  Keep them coming.  You can see what others say and add your own spin by clicking the comments button up top.  Browse through the rest of the site and tell me what you think.

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