GHG - Powerful Medicine To Cure The Runaway Human Ego, Part 2 - Grace

GHG - Powerful Medicine To Cure The Runaway Human Ego

Part 2 - Grace

There are various definitions and interpretations of the word grace. But I'm convicted of, and impressed by only one - the undeserved favor of God. As Christians we should recognize that it's purely by grace that we're saved. We should know that our salvation isn't something we can earn or make happen by our own efforts. If we don't ... then we're missing a huge element in our relationship to our Lord. It was made possible purely by an act of God - a benevolence or act of charity that was unmerited, unearned and certainly undeserved by man. There's nothing we can do to promote our own salvation other than choosing to accept what God has implemented... nothing.

As Christians we're very much aware of the awesome grace offered to us through Christ's sacrifice. But the moment of our salvation, though the pinnacle of His grace to us, is not the beginning of, nor His only grace to us. We know through scripture that it's available to us and made new every day. The truth of the full extent of God's grace to man though, may not be something we keep in the forefront of our minds on a regular basis. But He's aware of it and if we're not acknowledging it with gratitude and humility, then we risk returning His grace - His gifts, with indifference and ingratitude. Not only will we not be recognizing who He is to us to any true extent that we can know, but our indifference and ingratitude may be the countenance He sees when we come to Him in prayer. Like the children of Israel, we may have known what He's done on our behalf, but tend to forget it and cease to be thankful for it - but He doesn't forget.

Taking the time to recount the fullness of all that He's done and continues to do for us is a very worthy exercise. It helps us establish or perhaps just re-establish more firmly who He is ... and who we're not. It brings to the surface the glaring truth of our total dependence on Him and destroys any misconceptions or worldly thoughts to the contrary. It enables us to more firmly enthrone Him and establish Him as the unshakeable and indestructible base that all of the foundation of our thinking and lives are built on.

Every morning that the sun rises, we're the beneficiaries of His grace. Every tree, every flower, body of water etc, in the nature that He created around us is His grace to us. The very creation of man was an act of loving grace. He was under no bond to give us the joys and the pleasures of life. There is no power greater than God to command Him to do these things or to do them in the way that He has. It was and is ... His grace. At any time, our God could decide that He's tired of the wickedness, disobedience, insolence and ingratitude of man and send the sun hurtling into the earth or any number of unimaginable things... but He doesn't. Is it because He's bound by some force greater than Himself? The is no other force but God. So it's by His choice - because He is who He is, that He chooses to extend His grace for another day. But are we thankful for what He has done in these tremendous things? Do we acknowledge them? Or do we daily take them for granted? What must He think of us if we do?

I thank God often simply that He is who He is. His nature, character and spirit are so perfect and so precious. I thank Him just for not being different. I take great joy and comfort in knowing who He is - just like He is. His grace, generosity, kindness, righteousness and all that He is toward us, brings us so much. If He were any different, everything He chose to do or create would be different. It's the beauty of our God that we see in the nature of the things around us and His spirit in us that gives us life. If He were any different, how incredibly awful could things be for us? We don't even have the ability to know. But He's not and He is who He chooses to be.

Everything that man has heralded to have accomplished in the earth has been done with what our God has provided. So then what really is left for us to boast of? Even our knowledge of our great and awesome God is His gift of grace to us. He could have just placed us here and left us ignorantly trying to figure out why we exist (like some in the world insolently choose to do anyway). He could have just watched us buzzing around like little ants waiting for one of us to sin so He could throw us in the fire saying "oops! You blew it. Sucks to be you!" But He didn't, that's not who He is and not who He's chosen to be to us. He could have chosen to do anything that He's done ... differently. After all - HE IS GOD.

We live on God's grace moment by moment. He gives strength to our bodies to rise up every morning. If He should remove it, do we have some right to complain? Did we somehow earn the right to have the strength to rise? Who are we other than a work of His grace? But do we acknowledge it when we rise? Do we notice and give thanks? What commitments or promises was God forced to make to us? What power commands these things? Only His nature, because there is no other power. It's always by His choice, by His grace - He is God. The sun rises every day and the planets stay in the orbit He commanded because of His grace to allow us to continue to survive. He created the earth and all that He created with the planning and intention of creating us. He created nature to have beauty for our pleasure - He made it for us. Are you feeling it yet?

Only by learning to recognize the fullness of all that He does and has done for us are we able to have hearts and minds that are more faithful in their response to His. We could never thank Him enough, but our relationship with Him, demands that we offer what we can. Without acknowledging these things, it's impossible for us to have hearts that respond to His in ways that are correct in their posture before Him. If in exploring and considering all that He's already done for us, your heart's not overwhelmed with gratitude for His undeserved favor, then you still don't get it. If you don't feel so small in His presence and yet so awed by the immense value He chooses to place on you, then you're going to have a hard time relating to Him with a proper and true heart of humility and tremendous gratitude which brings us to the next word ...