Living by the Grace of God, Part 2

Galatians 2:20-21: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”

Not only do we begin our Christian living by the grace of God, our ongoing existence and sustenance in Christianity depends absolutely on the grace of God in Christ. Being a Christian is a total product of God's grace. God does not initially saves by delivering us from sin by His grace and then leaving us in this perverse world to maintain our salvation by our own efforts.

Jesus kindly encourages us in John 15:4-5: “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”

Let us beware of yielding to any subtle tendency to think or boast that we of our own cleverness or diligence can contribute to our spiritual sustenance and development. Such a tendency is a lie and a deceit, which lead to shameful disappointments and frustrations when our human zeal crumbles before us in bitter failure. The believer in Christ definitely is not foolish or lazy. The true believer in Christ is wise and diligent with wisdom and motivation which come from the Spirit of Christ within.

The availability of the grace of God is a source of comfort and hope for those of us who remain conscious of our human infirmities and weaknesses. Paul, whose human infirmities and weaknesses were constantly challenged by a relentless messenger of Satan, found great comfort and hope in the availability of the grace of God in Christ after earnestly seeking the Lord for deliverance. Paul testifies in 2 Corinthians 12:9: “And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” So our human infirmities do not have to lead to our defeat and failure when we depend on the sufficiency of the grace of God. Like Paul, we can triumph in the perfect strength of God in spite of our human infirmities by living by the grace of God; by allowing God to work in and through us.

The philosophy of worldly achievement is rooted in ideas of self-confidence and self-reliance, which ignore the truth of the grace of God and provides no real hope for our spiritual development. It is unfortunate that some have allowed it to creep into Christian thinking and to distort the message of the grace of God in the gospel of the Kingdom. This has led to a popular fad today among professing Christians of vain boastings and self glory that seek to cloud the all sufficiency of the grace of God in Christ for all Christian accomplishments.

But the Scriptures warn us in Colossians 2:8-10: “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.”

To rely on the spiritually deficient resources of fallen humanity is to be cheated of the abundance of the resources of God available freely to us in Christ by the grace of God. But the availability of the grace of God provides hope for the humble and the weak that in spite of our human infirmities and weaknesses we can triumph in our calling in this life by living by the unlimited resources of the grace of God. The truth about being saved by the grace of God is that through our union with Christ in His crucifixion and resurrection God gives us the opportunity to live not by our deficient human resources but through the powerful resources of the life of Christ in us.