You might have heard the phrase “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”, or “You only get what you give”. After all, “what goes around comes around”, right? Not with God.
God shares with us His grace – His undeserved favour. It’s often been said that grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more, and nothing we can do to make Him love us less. No amount of church-going, tithing, praying or do-gooding will earn us more of God’s love. At the same time, no amount of sin, lies, depression, self-hate, pornography or murder will keep God from loving us.
Seems strange, doesn’t it? After all, that’s not how it works between people here on Earth, right? But God loves us because of who God is, not because of who we are. God’s grace is bigger than our works, and bigger than our sin.
Grace is a concept unique to Christianity. You can’t earn it, you can’t buy it, and you don’t get more of it by being good or ‘religious’. It’s the opposite of karma. It’s a gift – free of charge, no strings attached. Grace is God’s unconditional love – yes, unconditional! He doesn’t wait until we love Him first, He doesn’t wait until we’re good enough to deserve His love. Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Ephesians 2:3-5 puts it this way: “…we were by nature objects of [God’s] wrath. But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.”
But while grace costs nothing for the recipients, it cost everything for the giver. In order to be able to lavish grace on us, God had to send His son, Jesus, to Earth, in a fragile human body, to be slandered, hated, persecuted, beaten, tortured and killed in a manner befitting the worst of criminals. More so, Jesus took on the punishment for every impure, vile and unholy thing in our lives, so that nothing would stand between us and the Father’s amazing love. This ultimate sacrifice is even more incredible in that it was done just for you. Yes, you.
The only question that remains is this – knowing what God has done for us, knowing how much He loves us, and what that love cost, how will we respond?
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