Does the average Christian believer truly understand how grace operated in their lives when they were saved? I've discovered that the average pew sitter on a Sunday morning has no idea how grace operates now in their daily lives much less at the time of their conversion.
We need to put the "amazing" back into grace, and move away from our conditioned church taught way to live the Christian life. How many of us grew up in churches where we were spoon-fed bible verses, Christian slogans, and heard enough spiritual cliches to make one's head spin around and around?
Sad to say all to many believer's view the Christian life as a rule book to be followed; you remember reading that old college student handbook, the one that listed all the rules to follow, oh yes, it is true that the Christian life for many has become a list of do's and don'ts.
There is no grace in following a bunch of rules and regulations. A believer will never know God's grace or experience God's grace by trying to earn God's favor or by being a good rule keeper. I can hear the charge already, so I'll put an end to that right here, no, I don't believe in antinomianism (no law), I do believe that God has given the believer a law to follow, it is loving God and loving your neighbor----remember Jesus saying that, " All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments" Matthew 22:40. How about the Apostle Paul telling us that "... the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: "Love your neighbor as yourself" Galatians 5:14.
So why is God's grace so amazing? because it give the guilty sinner the gift of eternal life, it gives the depraved man/woman a new heart, it gives the hell-bound, and hell deserved sinner atonement and forgiveness of sins. And never forget God's grace doesn't stop at our conversion, no, God's grace should and must reign in our lives at every moment, with every decision, with every effort, and yes, the believing saint acknowledges that all he has, all he does comes form the fountain of God's grace.
So many churches present the Christian life as a life of doing, always doing, always giving, always filling in a need in the church, coming out to a program etc,---and by the end of the day you just have a bunch of burned-out Christians who are zapped of any energy or life.
Now I know that the believer is called to work, to labor, to toil, and be spent for the Master, however if this in not done in the soil of grace, if grace is not known and experienced in the believer's life this work becomes onerous and heavy to the point that most Christians break down.
Christian, know that God does not accept you based on your performace level, oh no, He accepts you based on the work of His Son on the cross---"To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved" (Ephesians, KJV 1:6). Come to the place where you find his yoke easy and His burden light Matthew 11:30.
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