Saved by Grace   

The bridge of grace will bear your weight, brother. Thousands of big sinners have gone across that bridge, yea, tens of thousands have gone over it. Some have been the chief of sinners and some have come at the very last of their days but the arch has never yielded beneath their weight. I will go with them trusting to the same support. It will bear me over as it has for them. Charles Spurgeon

If heaven were by merit, it would never be heaven to me, for if I were in it I should say, "I am sure I am here by mistake; I am sure this is not my place; I have no claim to it." But if it be of grace and not of works, then we may walk into heaven with boldness.  Charles Spurgeon

My sister and I had a conversation yesterday that started me thinking.  One of the things we discussed is the grace of being saved.  In reality I am a sinner and a pretty rotten one at that. 

Before Christ’s death on the cross and his resurrection, I was dead in trespasses and sin.  There was no washing away of the sin in my life.  If we believe in the Christ who came to die for our sin, we need to understand the very depth of our own depravity.  We must look at how God sees us.  We may be able to hide the sin in our lives from people on earth but we are not able to hide it from God.

One of the things that used to confuse me was works. God’s grace is not about proving that I deserve to go to heaven.  I think we often believe that we can somehow do enough good things to earn our spot in heaven.  The sad reality is in our own power we are not able to earn salvation.  Jesus did the work for us.    When God said it was not by works so that no one could boast that was an amazing piece of wisdom. 

If we by our works could work our way to heaven then Jesus’ death on a cross was all in vain.  And if we are so busy telling others of the works we are doing then we are boasting.  Yet God says we don’t reach heaven by works because God knows our very nature.  The nature we are born with is to brag to others about the things we do.  To eliminate the possibility of us earning our salvation and bragging about it, God removed that from the equation.  The reality is we should be doing the things we are doing so that other people can receive the very same salvation that we didn’t deserve.   

G – God (Jesus died for our sin)

R – Repentance (Ask for forgiveness)

A – Action (tell others of the good news of salvation)

C – Cease to sin

E – Encourage and lift others up so they may see God.

Grace is a gift to us from a loving God. 

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, there were times in my life when I thought I had to work to earn my salvation.  If I look at it from that perspective then I am not seeing You as the God who saves.  Thank you for loving us enough to provide an avenue of escape from a sinful life.  Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.        

Scripture:   And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,  even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.  Ephesians 2:1-10