What's so amazing about grace?

I think an easier question to ask would be "What's not amazing about grace?" cos the answer would be NOTHING!!!

I've recently returned from Spring Harvest Word Alive* and the whole week was spent looking at the book of Galatians in the bible. And this book is a letter written by a guy called Paul to the early Christian church in Galatia asking them why they had started abandoning the way of life they had when they first became Christians and he encourages them to return to the freedom they have in Jesus Christ.

This is one of the key fundamentals and beauties of Christianity. It's called GRACE and it basically means receiving a free gift which we don't deserve. You see, being human means we're born with a desire to be in control of our own lives and want to do things our own way cos "we know best". However, this is not how we were created. God, the amazing creator of the universe, created us to be in a perfect relationship with him.

SIDETRACK Imagine being in a perfect relationship with the creator of everything we see, from the small creatures that roam our earth to the vast galaxies that tour the universe END SIDETRACK

But man wanted to be in control of his own life and decided it would be a good idea to rebel against God. This busted that perfect relationship. This rebellion was accepted by God and death was introduced.

But amazingly, God didn't leave us to fester away on our own. He didn't create us to die and be seperate from him forever so he provided a way for us to fix that relationship with him. He sent his only son, Jesus to this world to pay the punishment for our continuous rebellion for all time. And all we have to do is accept this free gift.

And this is what grace is. We don't have to do anything to gain this free gift from God. This is what makes Jesus Christ unique and Christianity itself, we, humans, don't have to do anything to gain this free gift from God. We don't have to perfect, brilliant, good, he'll even have us if we're the worst human being alive. And by accepting, we inherit eternal life, and get to live in absolute freedom!!!

Many people struggle with this idea cos for some reason we want to have to earn our way to eternal life. But that won't work. We just have to humble ourselves and come before God and accept it. A free gift of freedom. Brilliant.

*Spring Harvest Word Alive is a large Christian Conference held every year in Butlins, Skegness. Lovely stuff.

: 09 Apr 2005 22:52 |  Tags: Faith |  Comments (2) |  Report a problem