wonderful grace

We have family worship a.k.a. led worship session every first Sunday of the month. Keith had the honours of leading worship yesterday with the theme of "GRACE". On Saturday, I received an SMS from Keith. It went something like "can you share some thoughts on grace from Eph 2:3-9?" I hesitated. As much as Eph 2:3-9 is very apt in a discussion on God's grace, I didn't want to go through the usual doctrinal motions on grace. Most Christians already understand that anyway (I should think). So I decided to share on what God's grace means to me.

To me, grace is knowing that God accepts me just as I am. What you see is what you get. Yes...just ol' undeserving ME. Most of us seek the acceptance of our peers...yours truly included. In that, as much as I claim individuality, I am somehow indirectly molded by my surrounding influences just so that I can conform and hopefully...be accepted. But isn't it amazing that God accepts us just as we are...with all our flaws and iniquities? Look at what Jesus did to His disciples. Some were fishermen, some were tax collectors. Certainly not quite the kind of people you would expect a renown teacher to associate with. Nevertheless, Jesus took them as His disciples and worked His transforming power to change them into an empowered people. We should expect Jesus to do the same with our lives!

Grace is also not easy. Imagine someone mocking and spitting at you, punishing you with a whip tied with shards of bone, and finally nailing you to a rough wooden cross to die. It's really something when you are so close to your point of death, and some of your last words are words of forgiveness to your tormentors. I certainly struggle in showing grace to the undeserving. I am only too quick to snap back at someone who has just insulted me. It is with this realisation that I am so ungracious, that God's grace becomes something so wonderful...so marvelous...so almost unfathomable.

But we have a God of love.

Do you know Him?