Because Of God’s Grace

Ephesians 2:8 

Christians have no grounds whatsoever for boasting. There is nothing to boast about. We didn’t become Christians because we were born into a Christian family, were relatively moral people, or did a number of good deeds. Therefore, we have absolutely nothing we can take credit for.

And if we find ourselves bragging about anything that we have done to obtain our salvation, either we are not saved, or we don’t understand what it means for God to forgive us.

In Ephesians 2, the apostle Paul makes a bedrock statement about the Christian faith: “God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it” (verses 8–9).

This is a foundational Christian doctrine. Yet it’s surprising how many people don’t grasp the simple yet profound truth that we are Christians entirely and solely because of the grace of God.

Earlier in Ephesians, Paul spoke of God’s mercy. Here, He speaks of God’s grace. God has dealt with us in grace, which is getting what we don’t deserve: His forgiveness, His pardon, and adoption into His family.

Someone has accurately defined grace as “God’s unmerited favor.” This grace came in spite of what we were and what we did.

Grace is getting what we don’t deserve. Mercy is not getting what we do deserve. And justice is getting what we deserve.

We never want to ask God to give us justice because, in doing so, we’re asking Him to give us what we deserve. And what we deserve is Hell. Thankfully, God has not dealt with us according to justice because Jesus Christ met God’s righteous requirement at Calvary. The death of Jesus satisfied the justice of God.

An effective testimony (your story of how you came to faith) always will glorify God and never will glorify the past. Some Christians make their lives before Christ sound so juicy and interesting that they make the present seem dull. That is an inaccurate testimony.

If you are honest about what you were before you became a Christian, then you must talk about the spiritual state you were in. You were separated from God and in rebellion against Him. A good testimony never will glorify the past; it always will glorify the Lord.

Every Christian has a testimony because the power of God has gloriously transformed every person who has put his or her faith in Jesus Christ.

It’s important to realize that salvation does not come from anything that we’ve done. So, let’s not boast about what we’ve done or what we gave up to follow Jesus. Granted, we may have given up some things, but they’re nothing compared to what God gave us in their place.

If we don’t realize that, then we don’t know how dark our state was, how miserable of a condition we were in, and how far we were separated from God.

Against The Dark

Ephesians 2:2 

Have you ever bought something that you didn’t really need? You came back from the mall with a new purchase, and you wondered why you bought it. So, you mentally retraced your steps. How did it all start?

Maybe you went to the mall to pass some time. You were walking along and saw a nice window display, and there was something about it that got your attention. Then you walked into the store, and you browsed your way right over to something. Eventually you decided to buy it. And when you got home, you thought, “How did I end up with this?”

It started because you were browsing. You were walking along without any aim or purpose. And the next thing you knew, you bought something that you didn’t need.

That is the picture the apostle Paul used in Ephesians when he wrote, “All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else” (Ephesians 2:3).

We were just browsing our way through the world, doing what everyone else did and parroting what everyone else said. We were acting like everyone else. That was the way we used to live before we committed our lives to Jesus Christ.

In fact, we thought we were in control of our lives, but it is clear that we were being blown about like a weather vane as Satan manipulated our lives.

The Bible says in 2 Corinthians, “Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God” (4:4).

And 1 John 5:19 tells us, “We know that we are children of God and that the world around us is under the control of the evil one” (nlt). This mentality, this realm, this wavelength that people are on is energized by Satan, the god of this world. That is a bleak scenario.

However, we come to these great words in Ephesians 2:4–5: “But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)”.

But God. We were in a bad place, doing bad things, and going the wrong way. But God. Underline those words in your Bible. If you want to do a fascinating word study, follow that phrase throughout Scripture.

Against a dark background with all the things that were going wrong in our lives, God, who “is so rich in mercy, . . . gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead.” This is what God has done for every believer. This is what God has done for you.

The Brilliance Of God’s Grace

Ephesians 2:1  

I am amazed by anyone who actually believes that people are basically good. I have to say that in many ways, they have more faith than I do to believe that.

As I see the depravity that humanity is capable of, I become more convinced of the fact that people are not basically good. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. And that is clearly what the Scriptures teach.

Ephesians 2:1–2 says, “Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God”.

In these verses, the apostle Paul paints a very dark background so that we might better appreciate the brilliance of God’s grace. Just as jewelers display beautiful gems on dark velvet so we can appreciate their splendor, so God, against a very dark background, shows us how bad we once were. But He also shows us what He can make us into.

It is this balanced understanding of humanity that gives the Christian the only logical and satisfactory answer as to why the world is the way it is.

Make no mistake about it: We are sinners to the core. We don’t have to teach our children how to sin. It comes quite naturally to them, just as it came naturally to us. We aren’t sinners because we sin; we sin because we are sinners. It is in our nature.

Maybe you’ve heard the story of the scorpion and the turtle. The scorpion was thinking about how to cross a river when he saw a turtle sunning himself on the riverbank. So, he went over to the turtle and said, “My dear sir, I was wondering if you might give me a lift across this river here.”

“If I were to do that,” the turtle replied, “I think that you might sting me.”

 “What would be the logic in doing such a thing?” the scorpion asked.

“Well, you have a point there,” said the turtle. “Climb on.” So, the scorpion climbed on the turtle’s back, and they started making their way across the river. But suddenly the scorpion lifted his tail and stuck it into the turtle, giving him everything that he had.

The turtle, knowing that they were both about to die, said, “I have just one question: Why did you sting me? Where is the logic in that?”

“There is no logic in it, dear turtle,” the scorpion said. “It is just my nature.”

We sin because it’s our nature. We do what we do because we are wired to do it. It’s the way we are built. It is not that we are products of our environment, although that can affect us to some degree. We can be in a perfect environment or a horrible environment and still sin.

It is just our nature. Yet God shows us what we can become by His grace.

Your Super Power

Ephesians 1:19–20 

Sometimes we wonder whether we have enough power to satisfy the demands in our lives. If you’re a Christian, then you have more power than you ever will need. It’s like wondering whether you have enough power to turn on your lights when you have an entire nuclear plant exclusively powering your home.

In the same way, we can be confident that God will provide all the power that we’ll ever need.

Writing to the Christians in Ephesus, Paul said, “I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance” (Ephesians 1:18).

Paul went on to say, “I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms” (verses 19–20).

He was saying, “I want you to check your balance. I want you to realize how much power is available to you.” The same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead is certainly adequate to help us deal with the challenges, trials, temptations, and opportunities that we are going to encounter in life. Just as the cross was a display of God’s love, the resurrection of Jesus Christ was a display of His power for us.

All the power necessary is available to us to live the Christian life. What we need to do is simply plug in.

Maybe you’ve thought, “It is so much easier to just go with the flow. I might as well do what everybody else does.”

No, you can go a different direction. It takes a live fish to go upstream. If you’ve ever watched salmon swim upstream, then you know these persistent fish swim with all their effort. Not all of them make it, but some do.

Living the Christian life takes determination and, more importantly, yielding to the power that is available to you. You can make it if you want to. You can be more than a conqueror because of what Jesus Christ has done for you.

The question is this: Are you going to plug in to God’s power and apply yourself? It takes commitment on a daily basis. And the moment you begin to relax, the moment you stop seeking to move forward spiritually, will be the moment your downward trend will begin.

Already Paid

Ephesians 1:7

At the time Paul was writing his letter to the Christians in Ephesus, there were many slaves living in the Roman Empire. Some scholars believe that up to six million people lived in slavery at this point in history.

So in the first chapter of Ephesians, Paul used the analogy of a slave that had been bought out of a slave market. He wrote that God “is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins” (verse 7).

If someone wanted to free a loved one from slavery, they could go to the slave market and pay the price. They could purchase freedom for the enslaved person. This is what Christ has done for us. He redeemed us. He purchased our freedom. And it all came about through the blood that He shed for us.

The irony is that non-Christians often think they’re free, while they see Christians as people who live under a lot of rules, regulations, and restrictions. Meanwhile, they think they can do whatever they want to do because they’re the captains of their own ships and the masters of their own destinies.

But that simply isn’t true. They are not the captains of their own ships. The captain of their ship is, in fact, Satan. One of the greatest deceptions the devil pulled off on humanity was to convince people that he doesn’t even exist—all while he manipulates their lives.

Referring to unbelievers, the apostle Paul said, “Perhaps God will change those people’s hearts, and they will learn the truth. Then they will come to their senses and escape from the devil’s trap. For they have been held captive by him to do whatever he wants” (2 Timothy 2:25–26).

Before you became a Christian, you were not free. You were a captive, a slave. But Jesus Christ came and paid the redemption price for you. That is the Good News.

This, of course, points back to the Old Testament, where the priest went into the temple, took an unblemished lamb or goat, and killed it, thus spilling the blood of that animal. It symbolically placed people’s sins on the sacrificial animal.

The Bible says, “According to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood. For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness” (Hebrews 9:22).

But that never got to the heart of the problem. In fact, the definition of the Old Testament word atonement means “covering.” At best, it was just a cover-up. But it didn’t get rid of the stain.

In the New Testament, however, we read that Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, took away the sins of the world. He got to the heart of the matter. He shed His blood for us. He met God’s righteous demands at the cross. Therefore, we have open access to the throne of God, regardless of what we have done. Our access comes through Jesus Christ.

Safe In God’s Love

Jude 1:20–21 

Though God’s love is unsought, undeserved, and unconditional, it is possible for us to be out of harmony with Him.

The Book of Jude tells us, “But you, dear friends, must build each other up in your most holy faith, pray in the power of the Holy Spirit, and await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will bring you eternal life. In this way, you will keep yourselves safe in God’s love” (verses 20–21).

Notice the words “keep yourselves safe in God’s love.” The New King James Version translates it as “keep yourselves in the love of God.”

Does this mean we need to keep ourselves in a state where God will love us? In other words, do we need to make sure that we’re very lovable people? That is virtually impossible. No matter how hard we try, we ultimately will fall short of God’s standards.

Obviously, there is God’s part: He is ready to keep us. But we must take practical steps to keep ourselves in His love.

The Bible isn’t saying that we should do certain things to somehow merit God’s love or earn His approval. Rather, to keep ourselves in the love of God simply means that we need to keep ourselves in a place where God can actively bless us and show His love toward us.

Take, for example, the story of the Prodigal Son. His father loved him, but he foolishly took his portion of the inheritance and went to a distant country to live as a fool. Ultimately he came to his senses and returned home.

Here’s the question: While the prodigal was away, was he still his father’s son? Yes, although he was a wayward son and a distant son. But technically, was the prodigal still his son? Yes. Was he keeping himself in a place where his father could actively demonstrate his love? No, he was not.

His father probably didn’t even know where his son was at the time. But when his son returned home, he forgave him. The father took off his son’s rags, put a ring on his finger, clothed him, and threw a party for him. So, was the son then in a place where his father could actively show his love toward him? Yes, he was.

The same is true when we disobey God and do things we shouldn’t do. It isn’t that God stops loving us. It isn’t even that we have ceased to be true Christians. We are simply wayward children, or prodigals. We have essentially taken ourselves out of the love of God. We have removed ourselves from a place where God can actively show His love in our lives.

Stay in a place where God can show His love to you. Keep yourself from all that is unlike Him, from all that would violate God’s love and grieve Him. Stay away from the things that would tear you down. Instead, stay close to the Lord and around people who will build you up spiritually.

Why God Created Us

Isaiah 43:7 

What is the purpose of our lives? Why do we exist? Why are we here on this earth?

According to the Bible, we exist primarily to bring pleasure to God. Speaking through the prophet Isaiah, God said, “Bring all who claim me as their God, for I have made them for my glory. It was I who created them” (Isaiah 43:7).

That thought really bothers some people. They like to think that the world revolves around them. The result is they will end up squandering their lives in pursuit of something they never should have been seeking outright, and that something is happiness.

If you want to be an unhappy person, then try to be a happy person. In other words, if you try to find happiness by pursuing it, you never will attain it.

God predestined us to bring Him glory. That is a foundational truth that we all need to lay hold of. To miss this is to miss the reason that we’re on this earth in the first place.

The Bible says, “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure” (Ephesians 1:4–5).

This is also echoed in Heaven. We read in Revelation 4 about twenty-four elders who fall in worship before the Lord on His throne, saying, “You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things, and they exist because you created what you pleased” (verse 11).

Let that sink in for a moment. The twenty-four elders are saying to God, “You created everything, and it’s for Your pleasure that they exist and were created.” God didn’t create us for our own pleasure; He created us for His pleasure. He created us to glorify Him.

When people try to find happiness in someone or something, it always will be a little bit beyond their reach, a little bit elusive, a little bit hard to get. They think it will be in that next relationship, that next experience, that next possession, or that next accomplishment.

Those who live this way don’t care what it costs. They don’t care about rules and regulations. Happiness is the main priority of their lives. But they never will find it.

Here’s the good news for us as Christians. When we seek to fulfill the purpose for which God created us which is to glorify Him, honor Him, and bring Him pleasure then we will find happiness.

It will come not from seeking it but from seeking Him. As the psalmist David wrote, “Joyful indeed are those whose God is the Lord” (Psalm 144:15). We must never lose sight of the simple truth that we were created to glorify God.

The Heart Of God

2 Peter 3:9

The heart of God is for everyone to be saved.

However, some people argue that it’s wrong to say that God loves everyone because if someone isn’t one of God’s elect, then God doesn’t love them and therefore didn’t die for them. This is foolishness.

We ought to take the gospel to every person because we don’t know who the chosen are or are not. All we know is that God wants everyone to believe.

As Dwight L. Moody pointed out, “The whosoever wills are the elect, and the whosoever won’ts are the non-elect.”

Our responsibility is to bring the gospel to everyone we can. The apostle Paul wrote, “So we tell others about Christ, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all the wisdom God has given us. We want to present them to God, perfect in their relationship to Christ” (Colossians 1:28).

There is no denying the fact that the Bible appeals to the will of man. Jesus said, “Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die” (John 11:25–26).

Revelation 22 tells us, “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’ Let anyone who hears this say, ‘Come.’ Let anyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who desires drink freely from the water of life” (verse 17).

We get hung up on the hows and the whats of predestination, and we miss the whys. Why did God choose us from the foundation of the world? For what did He predestine us? We need to know the answers to these questions.

God chose us so that we could have fellowship and intimacy with Him. God wants us to be His children. Ephesians 1:5 says, “God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure”.

Our sin separated us from God, but God adopted us into His family. That is why the Bible says, “And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, ‘Abba, Father’ ” (Galatians 4:6). This is the affectionate cry of a child. An English equivalent of “Abba” is “Daddy.”

God predestined us to be adopted into His family. But that is not all. He also predestined us to be holy and without blame. In Ephesians 1:4 we read, “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes”.

This is the outgrowth of relationship. Realizing that we are children of God and that He has forgiven us causes us to want to live a life that honors Him. Holiness speaks of inward purity. And blamelessness speaks of outward purity. It means that we live it both on the inside and the outside.

As we spend time walking with God, we will want to become more like Him.

A Cause For Rejoicing

Ephesians 1:5

If you knew the outcome of something before it took place, would you choose the option that would work in your favor or against it?

To put it another way, if you knew ahead of time what the winning lottery numbers would be, would you choose the right ones or the wrong ones?

God knew exactly how each of us would turn out. And He chose us from the foundation of the world. Maybe you’re saying, “I think the Lord made a mistake here because I’m a loser.”

No, God chose you to win. He chose you to become something that He will make you into. You might look at yourself and see only your flaws and shortcomings. But just remember that you are still a work in progress. God is not finished with you yet. And He will complete what He has begun in your life.

We might say that we “found the Lord,” but in reality, God wasn’t lost. We were. And, one day, we made the discovery that God loves us. We saw our need for Him, and so we chose Him. But God chose us first. Jesus said, “You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit” (John 15:16).

God didn’t choose us because of any inherent merit or goodness on our part. It’s clear that, despite our best intentions and the high opinion we may hold of ourselves, God’s choice had nothing to do with that. Before God made the world, before sin even entered into it, God predestined us and chose us to be His children.

In fact, I believe that God has predestined every person to be saved. God wants us to be saved. He wants us to be forgiven. But the Bible also teaches that God gave us free will. Our choice does play into the matter, and I believe that we cast the deciding vote.

The doctrine of predestination is not something that we will understand, necessarily. Yet Jesus Christ shed His blood for everyone. Jesus said, “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 NLT).

Notice that Jesus didn’t say, “For this is how God loved the elect.” What He did say, however, is that God loved the world.

Romans 5:6–8 says, “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners”.

Jesus died for all of us so that we might know Him. We may not understand why God chose us, and that’s okay. But let’s rejoice in the fact that He did.

Looking Forward

Joel 1:1-20

More often than not, waiting involves a lot of stress especially when we don’t know how long it will be until the holding pattern ends. During the wait, we sometimes turn away from God and yearn for a time when things felt easier. But what if we turned towards God and looked forward instead?

The prophet Joel spoke to God’s people during a challenging time when their land had been invaded by locusts. Livelihoods were destroyed by drought and pestilence, and people were starving. Those were days full of destruction, darkness, and utter gloom.

Yet God did not point them back to the good old days. Instead, He pointed them to the future, to Himself. He called them to return to Him and reminded them that a day of vindication and redemption would ultimately come. And while it’s true that “ultimately” could be generations away, there is comfort in knowing His promise of restoration is certain. On that day there will be tremendous rejoicing vats will overflow and “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (2:32).

By turning our eyes forward towards that certain-yet-far-off day, we too may find the strength to keep waiting.