Today is a day to celebrate the grace of God.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).
Let those words sink in deep. Grace saves. We can take no credit for all we have and all we are in Christ. For by grace, we, the church, have been saved from the penalty of death, from the very wrath of God, and recreated into children of the one, true living God. And who did this saving? Who has shown us this favor?
In 1 John 4:14, the Apostle John states “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.” John emphasizes that this mission was an act of holy love (1 John 4:9-10).
The holy God of the universe saved us from his very own wrath because he loves us, which means his grace is not arbitrary and should not be taken lightly as though he gave us a break or let us off the hook with no cost to himself.
No, the Lord purposed before the foundations of the world to execute a rescue plan so glorious even the angels long to know It (1 Peter 1:12). Ephesians 1: 4-5 informs us that we, the Church, were in the mind of our God long before we were thinking about him. The Lord chose to love and save us. From the beginning, he determined that we would not lift a finger to save ourselves from sin, death, or final judgment.
He would do all the work.
The Lord opened our eyes to this truth when we first believed, and it ruined us and made us new. Let us remember that this reality is just as glorious and life changing today. This truth is so powerful that it has the ability to transform us this very moment if we would stop our needless striving and believe in the sufficiency of his holy finished work.
Ephesians 1:7 says that he lavishes us with grace. We are saved by grace and, today, our great God floods us with its richness and will do so forever. His grace meets us in the grind of our daily lives and keeps us to the end, training us to be self-controlled and godly in this present age (Titus 2:11).
The grace in which we stand offers us great hope as we sojourn through a world that is still broken by sin and death, struggling against the indwelling sin that remains in our hearts. Thus, it’s never been enough to know Ephesians 2:8 as a mere fact that saved us when we first came to know Jesus. We are to cling to this truth every day. We thrive off of this truth, preaching this gospel to ourselves that we might live in light of it and bear fruit—daily becoming more and more like our Savior.
Because of the grace of our God, we have reason to smile, sing, and even dance like an old gospel song says,
“When I think about Jesus
and all he’s done for me,
When I think about Jesus
and how he set me free,
I can dance, dance, dance, dance, dance
all night!”
When I think about Jesus, his perfect life, gruesome death, and magnificent resurrection, and the way he opened my eyes to see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ (2 Corinthians 4:4), I can dance like David in the streets of Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6:16). I can dance, and leap and shout because his grace is that amazing. For it is by grace that we are saved to enjoy the most precious gift of all–knowing God.
Laura Hardin is a wife, mom of three young children, writer, and podcaster. She enjoys encouraging women to abide in Christ one day a time at www.laurathardin.com. Connect with her on Instagram.
