Do you remember when you were first saved? Do you remember the exhilarating joy you felt with the knowledge that your sins had been forgiven? Do you recall the heavy weight lifted off your shoulders as the shame and guilt of your past melted away in the glow of God’s grace and love?
If you were like me, you probably had thoughts similar to these. “What an incredible God! What indescribable love! To think that he could accept someone like me as his child. To think that Jesus would take all that excruciating pain and anguish for not only all my sins but all the sins of the world. Who wouldn’t want a God like this for a Father? Who wouldn’t want to know his unconditional love and grace?”
But then time goes by. Perhaps its a few months. Perhaps its a year. Perhaps its two or more. No matter how long it takes, the honeymoon seems to fade away. The joy of your salvation gets crushed under the weight of trying to live up to expectations. You hear a steady drumbeat of what it means to be a good Christian. You have to pray more. You have to read your Bible more. You have to give more. And not just your money but also your time. You have to go to church every Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday night. In fact, you should be there every time the doors are open. And it’s not enough that you just show up. You also need to volunteer to lead every program or bible study group you can. And on top of all that are the many warnings about how you need to clean up your life, obey God’s commandments, or else. Before you know it, the things you once did because you loved God you now do to be loved by God. Your initial joy has been replaced by obligation and duty. What a miserable way to live!
If this describes your experience, you are not alone. There are many others who have gone through the same thing you have. For all of you who have experienced this, this is the blog site for you. In future blogs, I will be writing about the grace of God and how it transforms every life that is touched by it. Together we will examine how his grace frees us from legalism, frees us from the power of sin, frees us from the desires of the flesh, frees us from the tyranny of having to please others, and frees us to love him as he loves us.
Even if you haven’t had this experience in your life, this is still a blog site for you. There is nothing that compares to living in the grace of God and there is no better encouragement than to be among those who are doing so. It is my prayer that you will receive that encouragement from this site. And besides, with all the different worldviews out there competing for our hearts and minds, isn’t it good to be firmly grounded in his grace and love? I further pray that this post and the ones to come in the future will help provide some of that grounding.
And even if you are not a Christian, I would still recommend this site for you. In fact, I would recommend many such sites for you. I want you to know that God loves you. I want you to know that Jesus died for you and lives for you. I want you to know that if you’re tired of the daily grind that comes from this world and it’s empty promises, there is a much better life waiting for you. It’s a life of peace you have never before experienced. It’s a life of love you have never before known. It’s a life of freedom that far exceeds any freedom this world has to offer. Stick with this blog. It may take time to get it but the message of grace and peace that God wants you to know is real. And so is Jesus Christ, the one who is filled with grace and truth. (John 1:14) Once the joy of knowing him grabs hold of you, your life will never be the same – and you will never want to go back. It is then that you will discover the peace of God which transcends all understanding. (Philippians 4:7)
To this point I’ve only made references to the wonders of grace in an individual person’s life. But that’s not all there is. Another wonderful aspect of the grace of God is the impact it has on the life of the church. How his grace plays itself out in each Christian also helps shape and influence how the church operates, how it functions, why it meets, and how it interacts with the world at large. So my posts will not only focus on God’s grace at an individual level but also on how it is revealed through the church. And what we discover may surprise you. You may come face-to-face with a far different view of church than you’ve ever seen before. As each person lives in the grace of Jesus Christ, the church as a whole will reflect it, and the glory of our Savior, the head of the church, will be evident to a world thirsty for real truth and love.
Now you may be thinking, “You make it sound like that there is nothing more important than grace.” To that I would respond with a huge “YES!” Since we can’t have life without Jesus and Jesus is the very embodiment of grace, we can’t live without it. Apart from his grace, we would be dead in our sins, forever lost and separated from our Father. In his grace, we will bear fruit and the light of his love and truth will shine through us. There is nothing more important. There is nothing we need more. Grace is essential for our Christian life.
So this introductory post is just for starters. Stay tuned. There is so much more to come.
Essential Grace 