Our
watchword for today is Grace Alone - (Sola Gratia) - Karma's worst nightmare!
Its nothing you
accomplish - So, whose legacy are you trying to build?
We are saved by God’s grace alone and not by doing good works, believing the right things or behaving in a certain way. The phrase, "good thoughts good words good deeds," is not Christian. Rather, they are the primary principles of Zoroastrianism. That is why we flip this teaching on its head when we confess to the LORD and to each other, "I have sinned against You in thought, word, and deed." All the positive affirmations and healthy habits you could muster can not save you.
Indeed we
are not even able to participate in our salvation, because humans are and will
always be sinful. Sinfulness is part of the human condition we cannot escape.
We completely rely on God in Christ to be graceful and save us even though we
do not deserve it. Deserving has nothing to do with it.
God’s Grace
Is a Free Gift
God’s unconditional love for us is the reason for
God’s free gift of grace. Grace frees the Christian from all worries about
salvation. It frees us up to do God’s work with our hands in this world. We are
called to pour the love we receive from God back into the world again and to
become Agents of God’s grace.
When we speak of grace we must first ask the question:
What is grace? Grace is God’s undeserved favor (favor Dei) toward sinners.
Grace is God’s unmerited good intention. Grace is His loving disposition toward
those who have gone astray and are “dead” in sin and “by nature children of
wrath” (Ephesians 2:1, 3). Grace, then, is something in God, not in man. So we
hear that “Noah found favor [grace] in the eyes of the Lord” (Genesis 6:8).
However, God does not declare us righteous and free
from guilt in a vacuum, as if He just ignores our sin. We have a great debt we
owe God due to our sin, a debt that must be paid. God’s justice demands it. Yet
this is a debt none of us can pay.
So, God in His grace planned for our salvation. For
God’s grace is more than a disposition in God. God’s grace is active—active in
Christ. In His grace God sent forth His Son to become flesh and pay the debt we
owe Him. God sent Christ Jesus to offer His righteous life in exchange for our
sinful lives upon the cross and to take upon Himself the guilt of our sin, our
debt.
Jesus Christ paid for the sin of the world, “with His
holy precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death.” Through God’s
grace alone we sinners are forgiven and justified because of Christ.
This means that there is nothing in us and nothing we do that moves God to forgive us. God is gracious to us because of Jesus Christ and because of Him alone. St. Paul writes: “In [Christ] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1:7). This gives such comfort to sin-stricken consciences, for God’s grace is not earned by what you do but is given freely by a generous God.
For this reason Scripture constantly speaks of God’s grace as the reason for our salvation in opposition to our works: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Again, St. Paul writes, “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace” (Romans 11:6).
Grace is always Karma's worst nightmare for we receive exactly what we don't deserve. To be saved by grace alone means you do not save yourselves.
Christ does. Christ has. It is finished! (John 19:30)
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