Dear COA Family, Here is the last of my 3-part series of sharing on giving thanks for things we may have taken for granted.
God’s Saving Grace in Our Lives
I personally do not think that we come even close to fully appreciating what God has done for us in saving us from our sins and the eternal punishment that had awaited us. Perhaps we will never be able to grasp the full measure of his grace towards us in our lifetime here on earth. But that does not mean that we should give up learning more and giving more thanks for what Christ has done for us.
The Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 2: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (v4-7).
One of the chief reasons for God saving us is explained by Paul: so that in our lives after our earthly lives, we will grow in our knowledge of the indescribable grace God has for us. And this grace is shown to us through his kindness towards us in what Christ Jesus did for us when we were all still sinners and enemies of God.
This alone ought to dispel all the wrong teachings and thoughts in some of our minds that God is an angry and vindictive cosmic taskmaster who is out to “get us” for every mistake.
Instead, the opposite is true.
God is our loving heavenly Father who is infinitely kind towards us. He possesses great mercy towards us and helps us when we are weak. He sends His Son to rescue us from our darkness and sends His Spirit to teach and empower us. There is no good thing that our Father would withhold from us. He intends to display his kindness towards us throughout all eternity!
This alone should inspire unceasing praises and thanksgiving from our hearts to God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Even if our day went fully bad and every conceivable wrong that could go wrong did in fact go wrong, we could and should still give thanks at the end of the day for the great salvation that Christ has wrought for us.
It is the most precious gift in all the earth and like the man with the pearl of great price – having Jesus is possessing all the riches on this earth. He is worth giving up all that we have.
God bless,
Revd Ian