Morning Dew
Key Passage: Ephesians 1: 5-10
Key Word: Ephesians 1: 8 – “….it is the gift of God….”,
One of the greatest challenges of the rational human mind is the word free. People are quick to point out that nothing is free and that not only has someone paid for it, you who are the recipient of the ‘free gift’ are just not aware of the hidden agenda behind the free gift.
So people naturally struggle with anything free. The human mind wants to believe that there is something we need to do to enjoy the free riches of God’s grace. We believe we have to qualify in some special way for this grace. We have to earn it somehow. But the truth is you can never earn God’s grace. There is no doubt that grace costs. But God through Christ bore the full price of the free grace and He does not expect us to pay a dime for it. We are just to receive it and enjoy it.
Think about it, and please think deeply about this. The air we breathe in everyday. Do we pay for it? Do we work to earn it? Do we qualify to breathe? The answer is self-evident. No one pays to breathe. Yet do we even know how the air gets supplied? Yet air or in our case oxygen, is most vital for life. We cannot last more than 5 minute without it. We take as much as we want and it never seems to run out. This is exactly how the grace of God functions.
It is like the air we breathe. It is always there and it never runs out. It is very vital for life and we cannot do without it. It comes from the God who made the Oxygen we breathe in every second. In an uncanny way, God provided air for breath and grace for life.
So today, I want to encourage you to inhale deeply and get your lungs full of oxygen, and then breathe in again, but this time breath-in the grace of God. Open your heart to receive grace and know that you really do not need to pay for it. Just receive it and live in it. It is a most liberating experience to receive God’s grace of forgiveness, mercy, redemption, justification, and glorification.
Just breathe today. Grace abounds.
Let us Pray: Father, Thank you for the free provision of your grace. Thank you that just like you gave us air to breathe, you also have given us grace to live. Help me to always take as much grace as I need for my daily living. In Jesus name I pray. Amen
Dear Pastor,
While it is true that God’s GRACE is FREE,the responsibility on our part as children of God to retain this Grace might not be entirely free.The COST of this grace must be clearly understood.For instance,for the Grace to last we must display Love as a commandment of God not only to those who love us but even to those who do not love us.Sir,in some cases, fostering love can have associated costs which must be borne by us even though God will later compensate us in a million fold.Other fruits of the spirits that God expect us to exhibit also come with its associated costs directly or indirectly
My submission is that even though GRACE IS FREE,sustaining it might have its COST
Nosa, I really welcome your input on this blog and I want to have more input like this. The point you made about our responsibility in sustaining the grace of God is quite interesting. I will like to state that grace has got nothing to do with man’s ability. we cannot pretend to even vaguely control it, so how can we sustain it. It is free from start to finish. If you mean we can abuse the grace, then yes, I agree. We could use the free grace wrongly and assume the wrong attitudes. But grace by its very nature is self-sustaining, because God initiates and upholds it by his sovereign power. Man cannot sustain the grace of God. My submission.
I love the analogy about the air that we breathe and the Grace of God. I take it for granted that the air that we breathe is free and I do not have to pay for it. My only responsibility is to ensure that I do not pollute the pure air and end up having to inhale noxious fumes. I also believe that the Grace of God is free and that God wants us to take that “as granted” or dare I say “for granted”. My only responsibility is that I do not frustrate or pollute the Grace of God by adding my own “works” to it like the Galatians, or thinking that I can earn it or have anything to do with it. Sozo in its full meaning is the free gift of God! My knowledge of the wonderful Gift of Grace however, creates a sense of awe and gratitude in me and this same knowledge and awareness (which also comes by Grace) is what compels me to Love as He has Loved me.