Do you know that you have a chance to inherit eternal life? Yes you, you actually stand a good chance – Check it out! By grace and through faith the eternal self-existent creator God who loved us more than life itself became a servant to die for our sins.
What is Grace? (Grace is unmediated favor). When you receive grace it’s a gift received from God. A gift by definition is something that was bestowed and not earned. A gift is free. If you refuse to receive something as a gift you might still receive it by earning it. Should you decide to work for something it ceases to be a gift. You can’t say “I’ve earned my gift” no, that would be an oxymoron. But God’s Grace is more than any old Gift. Grace is not only a gift from God, but you can’t receive it in any other way than accepting it as a gift. You can’t buy it, you can’t work for, and you can’t make it. There is only one way of receiving God’s gift, and that is by accepting it as a favor. Grace in its essence is so expensive that you cannot afford it.
By way of analogy: While hugging a puppy your 2yr old might say “Daddy I’m going to buy that puppy. The owner might say. Well this puppy is not for sale. This puppy is being kept as a reward to the winner of the wrestling match. She might respond. I’ll go daddy ill fight him and the puppy will be mine. You, as a father might see the longing in her eyes and you might get that warm feeling of love and compassion. You might think I want her to have that puppy so bad; I want her to feel the love. Realizing that she is totally incapable of ever receiving that puppy what do you do? You might just say - stand back my angel. I need to go and fight …. You might risk your life to see the joy, the happiness and the love of your child. Why: it touches your heart!
God asks: if you, being bad, know how to give good gifts to your children; will your heavenly father not give you much more. The Bible says He will give the Holy spirit to those who ask for it, Those who obey Him.
God’s gift of salvation through grace and faith is very costly, but He could pay the ransom for you. He already paid the price He gives it freely to everyone who asks but it’s just too costly to earn. It took the life of a Savior to afford you Grace. (Grace means saving you despite yourself) Grace means not working. it means that someone else bestows something on you. This is grace, grace is a gift from God and He gives you this gift to set you free from sin and guilt and everything that bounds. He will free you from every stronghold everything that obstruct our way to the Kingdom. “Nothing, but Nothing can separate us from the Love of God”. It is worth mentioning that Grace cannot be earned lest anyone should boast. Grace sets you free and it exonerates you from sin. When you receive grace you don’t have to become perfect first. You come as you are, but be sincere! God’s Grace receives you with your guilt and sin stained life and it turns your lost condition into a saved condition.
It is very important to realize that we cannot put a price on grace’ it is unattainable by us. The only way for us to receive grace is for someone perfectly righteous to die in your place; taking your guilt upon Him. Jesus is our substitute and our sin bearer. We cannot atone for our sins because we are sin invested to start with. How can we bear our own guilt or the guilt of others? How can we set him free from this guilt if we are guilty of ourselves? It demands the death of a substitute and we never had such a human substitute. It took a sinless person and more than that it took divinity. And more than that, the divine one had to die. So, the divine God had to take the form of a human ( to go through what we go through to identify with us and to resist temptation, Only then could He come out victorious on the other side) Another Thing: If the sacrifice remain dead, the salvation becomes null and void.. So, In order for Jesus to succeed as our Savior He must have a way to come back to life? Well Jesus was just such a person. He had life in himself. Death had no power over him. He is the self-existent one. He is Emmanuel. (God with us) Now, there is another problem with this whole scenario. We do not know about our depravity, So, Jesus had to take the initiative to come from a different dimension to come and save us. This creates another problem. Jesus, who is God must be a loving and selfless God; only then could He have our best interest in mind. IF he is full of pride he would not do it. If he lacks love He would not and He could not do it, even if He wants to! Now we all know that if we did not have a creator God; a God who had eternity within Him we would not exist in the firsts place. Thus the God eternal self-existent creator God who loved us more than life itself became a servant to die for our sins. He created us and bestowed His mercy, love and grace upon us. Why, because He loves us; His greatest desire is for us to worship and adore Him so that He could take us to heaven. Now where would you be without this wonderful Savior? - let me answer that! You will not exist. Think, If God were prideful, He would be “like the devil" you would be a slave and not a son nor an heir of the throne and a citizen of God’s Kingdom.
But there are some things that God cannot create. He cannot create someone with free will and heart that is obedient in one packet. No, obedience must be earned! Exactly how do you earn it? One way and one way only- by choosing of course – God will clean you up just abide in the Vine (Stay focused on His leading) this is the only kind of obedience that amounts to anything. This kind of obedience gives oneself to worship his Creator for the sole purpose of becoming like Him. Our greatest deride becomes a yearning to spend eternity with Him. To be in His love! This kind of loyalty cannot be bought and it must be earned and the only way to earn it is to fully trust in the merits of your Savior. After we had given our lives to Christ we indicate our desire to spend eternity with Jesus. What is the next step? We make a public declaration indicating our death to sin; we berry the old man of sin and rise to a new life in Christ this is done through Baptism, as explained in Romans chapter 6. When you give our life to Christ by repenting of your sins and asking for forgiveness you become a new creation, we are born again and we live for Him – old things have passed away and we become changed by the renewing of our minds. You are a good candidate for heaven; to inherit for the kingdom of God. But don’t become high minded; even if you obey with all of you might and power you will still not inherit eternal life based on your own merits, your goodness or holiness amounts to filthy rags, and it buys nothing – The works of God is to give your life to God, this will save you. Remember, you are just a recipient of God's grace and his unmerited favor. God is in the process of creating jewels for his kingdom. When we go there we will be the perfect companions to God. Our love is not forced or coerced, our love is a love offering to God and we will be perfect in his eyes he will set us free and He will declare us righteous if we live for Him. He will complete His salvation unto the end if only we would stay in Him. God made dogs to love us out of instinct and it is very precious to us, but God desires more than instinct. God wants us to love Him out of our own volition with fee will; He wants us to go through the refining fire so that he can remove the dross from our lives. God wants us to mature in Christ. This is the reason for us spending time on earth. We are here to perfect our characters. Jesus left us here on earth and He sent us the help of the Holy Spirit to lead us through a process of sanctification. This sanctification is not a set of rules and it is not doing some good deed. But show me your faith and I will show you my works out of faith, says Paul (the works flowing from a transformed life is fruits that will remain when we are Judged) Sanctification is a character changed; the Holy Spirit it is a character shaper. By relying on Christ, we absorb each and every word that comes from Him. This is relying on the Bible which is the words of God, Jesus is the bread of life and the bread of life will make you grow to maturity so that you can become a true believer. This kind of believer will feed of Christ. This kind of believer will make Christ the supreme object of His worship. This kind of believer will have no other mission than to glorify God to become like Him so that Jesus can shine through us and show His love to us.
