Monday, November 3, 2014

It's All by Grace

Am I good enough? What do I need to do to be good enough for God to love me? How can I earn God's love?

God has been continuing to take me back to the basics of what being a follower of His is all about. And this weekend was no exception. I was at a retreat with a group of ladies from my church. Our theme for the weekend was Delighting in God's grace.

When you get right down to it, following God is all about His grace. His love for us is all about the grace He has shown to us. There is nothing we can do to be good enough for Him to love us - He just loves us.

"See what great love the Father has lavished upon us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!" (1 John 3:1)

The love that God lavishes on us, is a gift from Him. We can't do anything to earn it. And we can't do anything to make Him stop loving us.

The Old Testament outlines God's Law that the Israelites were to live by. The rules and sacrifices that were a required part of life as one of God's people.

When Jesus came, He fulfilled the Law completely - He was the perfect sacrifice for sin. And that perfect sacrifice for our sin is offered to us by God as a gift. There's nothing we can do to earn it. We just need to accept the gift that comes by grace.

But, that is more difficult than it sounds. Our human nature likes the rules and things we have to do to earn God's love and grace. We make rules and requirements of what we should do and what we should avoid. 

In the process of that, we forget about God's grace. We miss His grace. And we struggle with feeling good enough for God to love us. Except that we don't have to try to be good enough to be loved. God doesn't ask us to be good enough - He just asks us to accept His gift of grace.

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