Grace!

I used to think grace was just about posture and the way you managed your body. Graceful - like a ballet dancer - not at all like me.
I went to a very small Primary School and when anyone new joined they stuck out like a sore thumb, and none more so that Grace Bullock. Her name was a contradiction in terms to my young mind. She was more of a bullock in her movements than a grace, until, that is, she was asked to read out loud in class. We were all mesmerised by the way she could read anything, from a text book on the Grimsby fishing industry to a Bible story about Jesus feeding the five thousand. She flowed. She read effortlessly, no stammering, no hesitation and she made it all sound interesting. She was the best reader I had ever heard and I was very jealous as I had had that title before she came and I was the one who was usually asked to read in class.

So now that I am much older and a Christian I understand something far different about grace. Grace is undeserved favour from God. He loves us and forgives us because of His Son, Jesus, and the fact that He went to the cross in our place.

I don't deserve God's favour but I have it just because I believe in His Son and that He died for me.

We listened to a brilliant sermon today and the Grace of God was explained to me very clearly. Imagine a young child playing and he accidentally bats a ball at a precious and highly expensive ornament and it falls to the floor and shatters into a million pieces. The father who knows the value of the ornament leaps to his feet and is about to beat the child when the boy's older brother stands between them and says: "Dad, my brother is more precious than the vase!" This makes the father think twice and he sits down chastened.
This is what Jesus does for us; he is like the older brother who steps between the punishment that God could deservedly mete out to us and reminds Him that we are more precious and God agrees with Him because we believe in His Son. Amazing. That's grace.

We are in the New Covenant. The Old Covenant was between God and the Israelites and they failed. They were bound to - there were too many rules and they could not possibly succeed. So God made a New Covenant between God the Father and His Son. We get in on that because we believe in His Son; we cannot fail. We think we have to earn it but we receive it by grace, through faith. We feel it's our performance that earns us God's Grace but it isn't! God declares me righteous because I believe in His Son.
Grace is a gift of God. I don't deserve it but I believe in His Son so He releases grace into my life. What a great deal. Why do so many people turn it down?