Righteousness of God through Faith In Jesus Christ (Part 2): Relationship in Grace
Romans 3:21-25a, 2 Corinthians 13:15, Revelations 22:21
Grace is the most important word in the Christian faith. Without grace nothing makes sense.
Half of the New Testament was written by apostle Paul; he wrote 13 letters to the church. In his letters, he starts by introducing himself as an apostle and servant of God. He ends all of his letters by saying “grace be with you”. He wanted Christians to live through grace, in grace, by grace.
There are 66 books in the Bible. If you read just the first and last part of the Bible it says God created the heavens and the earth, and ends by saying may the grace of the Lord be with you all.
The Bible is basically about how God created heaven and earth and how he wanted us to live a life in grace. The grace of creation, and the grace of Jesus is all we need to know about the Bible. Everything else in the Bible is just supporting those 2 things.
Romans 3:24 - we are justified by his grace as a gift. We become righteous before God by grace, through this grace. It’s not by our own doing or efforts, but by His grace.
Grace is God deciding to love us despite our shortcomings and flaws.We aren’t deserving, we are not qualified, or worthy, but we are justified by His grace. God wants us to have the same relationship with others. Not only just to love Him, but love others as well. We need to extend our relationship with God.
Think about your relationship we have with others. Do you extend grace? If you want to experience grace in your relationship with God, you should extend the same grace to others. Christianity is different from other religions because good work and efforts aren’t emphasized, but grace is emphasized. Grace comes first. Despite our flaws and shortcomings, God gives us unmerited love.
Level of Relationship with others:
Instinctive relationship - you do what you want based on your emotions, feelings and desires. Governed by your own instincts. “I’m hungry, I eat.”
Rational relationship - using your brain, starting to think. Is this relationship beneficial to me? Rational decisions but focused on what benefit I can get from this decision. “I’m hungry, does eating this food benefit my body?”
Ethical Relationship - is this relationship right or wrong? “I’m hungry, but others are also hungry.”
Grace - “I’m hungry, but you want my food even though you have your own. I will give you my food, even if you don’t appreciate it.” You do not deserve my kindness, but I will give it to you regardless.
God doesn’t make his decisions based on shortcomings or flaws. If we want to reciprocate this relationship of grace to others, then we shouldn’t make decisions based on others’ flaws and shortcomings. Regardless of the person, we share the grace we receive from God. This is hard because we don’t want to extend grace to those who don’t deserve it.
This dilemma can’t be solved by our own effort. It’s only possible to accomplish after experiencing how much grace we receive from God. Then this secondary effort will be a result of the first experience. That is why it can be super natural or a miracle. We should focus on our relationship with God first. Our love may be conditional, but the love we receive from God is unmerited regardless of our shortcomings.
Reflection Questions:
What does it mean to extend the grace of God to others?
What does that look like in your life personally?
