MY FRIENDS, WHAT IS GRACE?

Aug. 14, 2017

MY FRIENDS, WHAT IS GRACE?

Grace, can be compared to the pardon a governor gives to a guilty prisoner, who because of his crimes against humanity was sentence to death without a reasonable doubt by a jury of his peers. Death is assured, but the governor intervenes with mercy, and pardons the prisoner. And because the Governor is the final Judge, He pardons the prisoner and also rewards him with a mansion in, a place eye have not seen nor ear have herd, nor have entered into the heart of any man.”

Now you can say the Governor has given the guilty prisoner both mercy & grace. If he had received his just reward, the sentence would have been carried out and he dies for his crime. Abraham Lincoln said in 1863, “We have been the receipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prospertiy; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation….

But we have forgotten God and His gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, and too proud to pray to the God that made us.”

My friends, the world today also has become “Intoxicated with unbroken success, and to self-sufficient to feel the presence of God and His preserving grace, and too proud to pray, because we imagine, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.” 2,000 years ago Christ died at Calvary the “rulers mocked Him, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself if this is the Christ of God, His Chosen One.”

The soldiers also mocked Him…. saying, “If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself!………” Two criminals hung next to Christ. One kept hurling abuses at Him, saying, ” If You are Christ, Save Yourself and us [from death]!” But amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretched sinner who felt the presence of God’s Spirit as he rebuked him and said, ” Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?

We are suffering justly, because we are getting what we deserve for what we have done; but this Man has done nothing wrong.” He then with a contrite and forgiven heart said, “Jesus, [please] remember me when You come into Your kingdom!” Jesus answered, “I assure, and most solemnly say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.” Luke 23:32-43 (AMP)

Oh “the unearned, unmerited and undeserved favor of God towards a wretched sinner like you and I if we only believe the price for our sins was paid at the cross. One thief understood he did not deserve salvation, But he believed God’s promise of life eternal in His kingdom one day because He witnessed the price being paid by the blood of the Lamb. The other thief, his circumstances showed how he had lived. His refusal to recognize God’s grace and mercy shows how his life will end. What about you and I? The circumstances of our life also shows how we have live up to this point. Turning our back on God’s grace will also show how we will die.