God\'s Grace

Grace is a single-word definition of the gospel. The gospel is the good news of God's grace to mankind.  The nature of grace is giving, and the Bible tells us more about giving than getting, because it is God's nature to give. Our Father is a Father of grace because He is a God that freely gives.  It has nothing to do with anything we have done, or will do, or have failed to do; it can only be received. 
God is gracious because of who He is, not because of who or what we are. I have heard it said, that His grace is therefore unmerited, unearned, and undeserved. It depends entirely upon the One who gives it not on those who receive it.  GRACE is God's self-motivated, self-generated, sovereign act of giving!
God's grace has another demension that places it further above every other type of giving.  The greatest gift of grace is self.  GRACE is therefore God's Self donation.  His self-giving.  He not only gives blessings to men, He gives Himself! So infinitely more important and precious than any blessing God gives us, is the gift of Himself.  Just think... the God of the universe has givien Himself to sinful mankind.  We read in Ephesians that God grants us His salvation, His Kingdom, His inheritance, HIs Spirit, His throne, His riches, His wisdom, His love, His power, His peace, His glory, and every "spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ"
(Eph. 1:3).  But far more than all these blessings, He blesses us with His presence!  Our Savior, Christ within us, the "Hope of Glory"  Our Father owes nothing to sinful man.  He does not owe us the smallest of blessings or favors.  Yet through His grace He has given us the "Blessing" of all blessings, the imeasurable blessing of His Holy Spirit within us! (2 Pet. 1: 3-4).
When we choose a partner with whom we plan to spend the rest of our lives together, we are so careful to pick someone who is worthy of the self-giving that marriage demands.  That person is the one above all others to whom we will give our love, our time, our thoughts, our devotion, our loyalty, our resources;  in short, ALL that we have.
Yet, check this out... when God "chose us in Him before the foundation of the world" (Eph. 1:4). He did so out of pure grace and not from anything He saw in us that made us worthy of His care.  Remember: "For God so loved the "WORLD" that He gave His only Son" (John 3: 16). All God can see of our world is sin, yet what boggles my mind is, He gave Himself to this sinful world through His own Son in order that this world might be redeemed.  The Son also gave Himself and emptied Himself of His glory to offer mankind eternal life. (Phil. 2). In this giving of HIs own life He provides a way that spiritually dead men might live.  This is the story, by our choices, we get to help write.  The story of Eternal Life!
Come on  Friday mornings for Gladiators for His Glory at 8:30 a.m. if you are in our area and check it out for some good coffee, donuts and fellowship.
By the way, the most self-giving person I have ever met or been around is Sheri Irwin.... my wife!
I'm just sayin'    
Keith

Originally Posted October 21, 2014
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Keith Irwin

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