03/15/2019
Are you confident that you are saved? Do you walk towards that moment when you will face judgement without hesitation in your step, or falling to the ground in the midst of an anxiety attack? If we believe in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, then the grace of God will flow through Him, and without our having earned the right to our own salvation we will be saved... not by anything we have done, but simply by our faith in Jesus, and the mercy and grace of God Himself.
“You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus,”
2 Timothy 2:1 ESV
In the Old Testament the word translated as grace refers more to the deliverance from real things like enemies, sickness, or adversity and carries with it the idea of preservation and forgiveness. In the New Testament it deals more specifically with the provision of unmerited salvation. It is the same idea of God’s love, yet through Jesus Christ it brings a completeness... it flows out to all the earth. It provides us confidence in our salvation where once we doubted in our own ability to be sufficiently righteous and able to earn it.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,”
Ephesians 2:8 ESV
When I was a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute I was ruled by a system of merits, demerits, confinement’s, punishments, and if bad enough, by dismissal from school. I can’t tell you how many weeks and months I spent confined to my room, or walking back and forth in front of barracks on Saturdays with my rifle on my shoulder in order to remove demerits... we called these hours of punishment penalty tours, and every hour of marching erased so many demerits. This was an Old Testament application of discipline, but every once in a long while the Governor of Virginia would visit for some reason, and while there he could exercise a right he was given by the State... by his mercy and prerogative he could grant forgiveness for all penalties, and every cadet’s slate would be wiped clean! This merciful application, on the other hand, was New Testament in nature. We didn’t get the punishment we deserved, or erase our own penalties by some form of personal sacrifice, like penalty tours... it was accomplished by his purposeful grace alone, but unlike New Testament grace, we never knew when or why, he might do that.
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
Hebrews 11:1 ESV
Each time we heard the governor was coming there was hope that he would grant amnesty to the Corp, but it was never a foregone conclusion. With Jesus we know that our faith in Him always produces the same outcome... grace, and that where a cadet might have to serve the consequences of his transgressions... Jesus has paid the price for our sins.
“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.”
1 Peter 2:24-25 ESV
Have you confessed your faith in Jesus Christ, but still walk towards judgement with a stutter in your step? Are you a Christian in faith, Word, and deed, yet still anxious about what awaits you? If so, then you haven’t fully grasped the Love of God, and the power of His complete grace that flows to us through Jesus. On the other hand... if you are not yet a professed believer in Christ, and still doubt His ability to save you, I ask you to consider His sacrifice, and this application of God’s grace. You may be somewhere in the world today sitting in a jail cell as you pay the price of Old Testament justice, but even in that cell the sacrifice of Christ can find you, and the grace of God can pour over you. Man may require his due, but in the eyes of God you are redeemed by your faith in Jesus Christ, and given salvation through God’s grace.
“For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”
John 1:17 ESV
Prayer:
Father, thank you for your mercy, and thank you for your Son Jesus Christ through whom your grace flows to all those who have faith in Him. Help us Holy Father as we struggle in our inability to fathom such unwarranted grace, and give us unwavering confidence in your promise of forgiveness that was made perfect by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross at Calvary. Teach us Heavenly Father what is meant by your grace, and show us the full depth of it as we struggle to understand the perfect nature of your Love from which it springs. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you my God who forgives by our faith in His Son, and loves us without reservation. Your grace Merciful Father shouts of the glory that abounds in you. Praised be your name, and great are you who announces me forgiven in Jesus Christ.
“For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.”
Romans 5:17 ESV
Rich Forbes