Salvation is by grace

https://odb.org/MY/2023/07/27/extra-grace-required

The most fundamental tenet of our faith is that salvation is by grace. There is nothing we can do on our own that can save us as we are all born sinners and thus deserve wrath. That’s the thrust of Ephesians 2:2-10. We were dead in our transgressions, but God, in His rich mercy because of His great love for us, made us alive with Christ – it is thus by grace that we are saved.

Therefore, instead of uncertainty and trepidation, we have certainty of where we are going after we die. The question is whether our names are written in the Book of Life. Not a question of a weighing scale of whether our good deeds outweigh our bad. Not a question of whether our prayers and social welfare in our old age outweigh the sins and transgressions of our youth. If our names are written in the Book of Life, we will live with God for all eternity.

Of course, the effort then comes in after we are saved as we need to work out our salvation with fear and trembling as Paul teaches in Philippians 2:12. In Ephesians 2:10, Paul exhorts us that we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Thus, even the good works that we are to do have been planned and prepared in advance by God for us.

If we follow the track suggested by Paul, we will be OK. Christ saved us by His death on the cross, in God’s abundant grace. Then, we work out our salvation by doing the good works God has prepared for us. Don’t rebel and go our own way. Do all things without grumbling and arguing so that we may become pure and blameless children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation (Philippians 2:12-16). Go with the flow as the Holy Spirit leads. All this arguing and grumbling will just waste time and achieve nothing when there is much to be done.

The last point I like to bring up today is that as we are saved by grace, we should likewise give extra grace to those around us. People can sometimes be dumb and silly or just plain irritating but forgive them. Cut them some slack. It’s OK. We are not perfect, as yet when we were sinners, God saved us.