It has been a while since I last wrote this column. I trust that, as he has promised it, God’s grace has been completely sufficient for you; first to reconcile you to himself, and then to keep you and do good for you.
Be thankful for this, as by it’s very nature, grace (God’s unmerited favor to mankind) cannot be obtained or forfeited and is by the will of God alone. No effort of ours, or lack thereof, could ever qualify or disqualify us for the blessings that are in Christ, once we have accepted the salvation from ourselves and from our own sinful natures that comes only through him.
We were once enemies of God (Colossians 1:21) and therefore separated from him and unable to truly experience his love or his plan for our lives. Because man is incapable of refraining from sin (Romans 3:23, chapter 7) and because to a holy God even the good we try to do is tainted and is “as filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6) in his sight, we were in need of this grace.
Because God loves us and wants us to experience his love and plan for our lives, that we may be blessed by them (Jeremiah 29:11), and because we were incapable of being good enough to deserve to experience them, God had to make a way for that to be possible. And he did in Christ.
We are at the time of our salvation covered by grace (Ephesians 2:8a), permanently (II Corinthians 5:19). And not by anything that we have done or not done, but simply because of the atoning death of Christ (Ephesians 2:8b-9). Therefore in our atonement through Christ we are justified, satisfying God’s justice, and we are sanctified, satisfying God’s holiness.
By our sanctification we are made the very righteousness of God (II Corinthians 5:21), and because we are still human and therefore still incapable of refraining from sin,
God has made his grace sufficient to negate our depravity in that no matter how many times we offend God by our actions or lack thereof we are still in the same state of grace as before the transgression (Romans 8:1). We, who are in Christ, are forever blameless in God’s sight, because he sees us as having died with Christ and thus paid the penalty for our sins.
Some might say, “Then what incentive do we have to obey, if there is no punishment for disobedience?”
We have love.
We who have been given the gift of salvation simply because our creator loves us should be filled with such gratitude and deep love that we obey out of out of gratitude and love rather that fear of damnation for our inevitable failure. Jesus said, ” If you love me, you will obey what I command” (John 14:15).
David said that God had written his laws upon his heart and in his mind, and thereby made them his own will and desire.
God in essence made David want to follow his leading and enjoy it. Paul tells us in Romans 12:2 that God’s will is “good, pleasing and perfect.”
There is even more good news. Because God requires holiness to enter his presence, and because we are incapable of achieving holiness on our own, he sent the Holy Spirit to do the work for us. So not only are we instantaneously sanctified at the point of salvation, we are then progressively sanctified throughout our lives by yielding to the Holy Spirit’s leading in our lives. This is the closeness we feel to God and the processes of sanctification by which we are able to speak directly to an infinitely holy God.
All of these are received through grace: our salvation, our justification, our sanctification, our blessings, and our answered prayers are all given freely by a loving God to all who ask. They will never be taken away, regardless of our action or inactions.
They are given and sustained by the grace of our holy, loving God, and him alone.

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