Something inside us hates the idea of grace

For by grace are you saved through faith…. (Ephesians 2:8)

Anything that puts us down, we automatically shy away from. For many, grace does that.

Oh, we don’t mind singing about it, but the concept of grace itself is repulsive to our natures and offensive to our pride.

Something in me wants to be self-sufficient, to believe that whatever comes up, I’m able to handle, that as the poem says, “I am the captain of my soul.”

The cry of a four-year-old–“I can do it myself!”–is the insistence of the stubborn will of the adult child.

That’s why, even though we sing about it and say we love it, something inside us resists the idea of grace. That same something insists that I am sufficient for my needs, that my good works will accomplish everything necessary to land me in Heaven, that the rest is just so much religious talk.

The sinful heart of man is an atheist, an egotist, an idolator.

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God has built a redundancy into the Christian life

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing….” (Ephesians 1:3)

You want someone to drive you to town and both my brother and I show up at the same time in separate cars. You can ride in only one car; the other is redundant.

The word “redundant” means something unnecessary, maybe just a little too much.

In design and engineering, redundancy means building in safeguards to compensate for the failure of the primary system. The backup system you installed may never be used. But if it’s needed, it’s there in place, just waiting.

Imagine an automated system of some type going out due to a power failure.  However, there’s a hand-crank to work with. It’s slower but gets the job done.  People buy gasoline-powered generators as backups to power failures.

Think about the redundancy the Father in Heaven has built into the Christian life.  He saves us, writes our name down in Heaven’s book, we are adopted, and born again. He promises that He will never leave us, assures us that nothing can ever snatch us from His hand, and says that the life we now possess is everlasting.  He indwells us, overshadows us, goes before us, comes behind us, and undergirds us.  He gives us the Bible to teach us, the church to disciple us, assignments to accomplish in this world, and teachers to show us how.  He tells us we are saved forever, that we have become “Sons of God” even, and that we shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

Do we have a wonderful Lord or what?

The Father fully plans for us to arrive at His home safely.

Engineers build redundancy into bridges.

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