“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:8–10 ESV)
“The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”” (Lamentations 3:22–24 ESV)
We are saved by grace, not by works. It is only grace that could save us. We could never possibly pay the penalty for our sins, the payment is too large for our meager resources. Jesus gave himself to be our redemption. We come to experience this Grace by a special work of the Spirit in our lives. It is all of God. Salvation does not build up our self-esteem, it transfers all our hope to Jesus Christ. We are justified in him. In him there is no condemnation. We will never be in a state of self-security. We will never be in a state where we are no longer dependent completely on his mercy. Psalm 103 :10 is always true: “He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.”
We live dependent lives. We are dependent on God’s great mercy and grace. We depend on his commitment to keeping his promise to love us always. Let us grow comfortable leaning on the everlasting arms! Be reminded that “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning…” We always depend on his grace, never our performance.
Recently I had the privilege of doing the high-ropes course at Mount Hermon. The entire time you are on the course you are double tied into the safety cable. You cannot fall. You do your best to make it through the challenges, but ultimately your security does not depend on you at all. Your safety depends on the hefty safety cable system. This reminds me of God’s grace. When all is said and done, he alone saves us, and our security totally depends on his strength and faithfulness. There was not one moment on that course where I was depending on my effort to be safe. There is not one moment in our lives when we should be comfortable in our efforts, our performance; we happily are dependent on Christ alone.
Brigitta and I on the high ropes course!