BY GRACE?

By Rick Mathes

Ephesians 2:5 (NASB77)               ⁵  even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ ( by grace you have been saved),

I went through all of grade school and high school in the Roman Catholic education system. I can remember like yesterday asking the Marist Brother, “What is grace?” many times and I couldn’t understand what he said. Also, I never understood that I deserved anything. I was on my own from age 13. My life was like endlessly swimming against the current of black ink: dark and ugly.

Then at the age of 38 a Presbyterian minister told me that it was by grace that I was saved. “What is grace?” He responded, “Unmerited favor.” All of a sudden “Tetelestai” became crystal clear, “Paid in full!” I dropped to my knees and sobbed, “Thank you Jesus” and I have never turned back since. His saving grace was all I needed and for His reasons alone He chose me to be His. Talk about a lucky draw? I had 5 aces!

I soon learned that His grace didn’t end there. Time after time temptations would have overtaken me had it not been for His sustaining grace. I can’t walk on water without His empowerment. When we surrender and step out of the boat, saving grace is the ability to stand on the surface of the deep. Sanctifying grace is walking on the water. Our need for grace continues to the grave.

We can’t walk through that dirty world without getting some dirt on us. It’s like walking through a coal mine in a white suit. It is inevitable that we will soil ourselves from time to time. That’s why “Repent” was the first sermon of John the Baptist, Jesus, Paul, me and many other evangelists. We must repent, submit and obey!

“I don’t get no satisfaction” from any counterfeit the Devil may invent. My only peace and contentment is in His satisfying grace of love and eternal security in Him. It’s by grace we are saved and I thank God He chose me so that I might respond by choosing Him! But if you choose sin of the Savior, Satan doesn’t have any grace. You will drop like a rock into the eternal abyss of flames?