What better way to relaunch Essential Grace than to address two fundamental questions – What is grace and why is it essential? This article will answer the first question and the next will explain the second.
Grace is really a simple concept. It is receiving something that was not earned or necessarily deserved. It is like getting a wonderful, special Christmas gift that you never asked for or did anything that made you worthy of it. It was simply given to you because you are loved and cared about by the giver.
That is exactly what God has done for us. In so many ways, God has given us one gift after another. We will explore those gifts in future articles, but it’s sufficient to say now that we did nothing to either earn or deserve them. He did it because he is a giver. He did it because he is full of grace. He did it because he so loved the world that he gave us his one and only Son, so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). (Hint: That is one of the gifts.)
God’s grace has been revealed to humanity in many different ways throughout history, but its ultimate expression is found in Jesus. As John wrote in the opening of his gospel, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (John 1:17). It is in the stories of Jesus throughout the Gospels that we most clearly see his grace in action. As Jesus said of himself, he came to proclaim good news to the poor, freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:16-19). He cured people’s diseases, satisfied their hunger and thirst, declared that their sins were forgiven, and raised people from the dead. Had the beneficiaries of these incredible gifts done anything to earn or deserve them? Certainly not in Jesus’ eyes. He did it because he had compassion for them. He did it because he cared for them. He did it because of his inexhaustible love.
Nowhere do we see that more than on the cross. It is there that we see the fulfillment of John 3:16 and it is there that the complete expression of his grace was on display. Through his supreme sacrifice, the door of salvation for all of humanity was flung wide open. Talk about a gift freely given that was neither earned nor deserved.
That is grace. And Jesus is grace personified. And since Jesus declared that if you’ve seen him, you’ve seen God because he and the Father are one, then God, like Jesus, is also full of grace. The life we have in Christ was made possible because of our Father’s love and grace, a love and grace that was exhibited from the very beginning and is available for everyone. More on that to come.
