For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. Ephesians 2:8-9 KJV
We were all lost and separated from God. We deserved the punishment of death, because we disobeyed God’s laws and lived in sin. But God so loved us, He sent His only Son to die and save us.
God extended grace to us and saved us from death. Grace is God’s good-will, God’s loving kindness, His favor to us. God said, I will not punish you with death, I will show loving kindness to you. This was done through the death of Jesus on the cross. Jesus never sinned. We did. We should have been the ones on the cross because of our sins.
There is nothing, no amount of works that we could do for us to earn God’s grace. All God requires from us is that we believe in Jesus Christ. When we chose to believe in Jesus Christ, we are no longer condemned to die. We no longer have to face death. God had extended mercy to us and gave us a gift; a gift we did not deserve. That gift is grace.
God gave us the gift of grace and therefore we cannot boast and say, we worked hard to earn it. When someone work they receive payment. We do not consider payment as a gift, because we did something to earn it.
When you receive a gift, what do you do with it? Do you just through it aside? Do you trample it and treat it like trash? No, when we receive a gift, we should treasure it. I don’t know about you, but when I receive a gift, no matter how big or small, I treasure it, especially if I received it from someone I love dearly. I am very ‘touchy’ with my gifts and don’t want them to be mishandled. It is no different with the grace of God, the gift we received from God. We should not take God’s grace for granted. A heavy price was paid to save us, Christ death on the cross.
Let’s stop a moment today and reflect on the gift of grace that we have received. Lord, we are thankful for the gift of your grace that has saved us from the punishment of death. May we never take your gift for granted but treasure it and hold it dear to our hearts, in Jesus’ name, amen.
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