Grace our teacher...

If we are saved by grace, not of works, as it is a gift of God… which we are! It still remains that we must learn through faith to seek out grace.

“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.” (Ephesians 2:8) – How then does grace work in our lives to get us to heaven? Life then must be full of varying trials to teach us our dependence upon the mercies of God. Life cannot be a cruise, it must be filled with hardship, how else would we ever come to appreciate this wonderful gift of salvation?

Let us go back many years, many epochs ago God chose a man by the name of Moses to save the Israelites from slavery out of Egypt. They were engulfed in great hardship! But before he used Moses to free them, even move hardships were placed upon them to help them realise their desperate state, just in case they never understood the severity of their plight. He used great signs and wonders to show them who He was and He uses similar rescue tactics with us. Not great signs and wonders like times of old, but that small still voice that rescues us out of our difficulty. Through prayer and our personal experience of Him coming to our aid is what it is all about.

I have come to understand this in a new light of late, how would I come to appreciate this truth if it wasn’t for various hardships in my life. It is only through my desperate state when I am forced to cry out unto Him that I realise I am unable in my own capability to rescue myself, that the magnitude of the grace of God will dawn upon me, as He comes to my aid. It is the same for one and all. The greater the responsibility in God’s kingdom, the greater the trial!

Let me explain…

It is only when I am desperate that I will realise how valuable the grace of God actually is. If life is a “bed of roses” and plain sailing how will I ever appreciate what I have been saved from?

Read through the accounts of Exodus and it will become evident what God’s intention was and now still remains. He hasn’t changed His approach, the same lessons that applied back then apply to us today. It is an example of how we should walk today, not to always ungratefully complain about out predicament but rather to be thankful for what we have in Christ. There is a promise just on the horizon, where we will enter into His rest, but until then we must seek out His graces to get us there. It is these trials that show us our faith, what it is made of!

“Shew me wherefore thou contendest with me.”

- Job_10:2

Perhaps, O tried soul, the Lord is doing this to develop thy graces. There are some of thy graces which would never be discovered if it were not for thy trials. Dost thou not know that thy faith never looks so grand in summer weather as it does in winter? Love is too often like a glow-worm, showing but little light except it be in the midst of surrounding darkness. Hope itself is like a star-not to be seen in the sunshine of prosperity, and only to be discovered in the night of adversity. Afflictions are often the black foils in which God doth set the jewels of his children’s graces, to make them shine the better. It was but a little while ago that on thy knees thou wast saying, “Lord, I fear I have no faith: let me know that I have faith.” Was not this really, though perhaps unconsciously, praying for trials?-for how canst thou know that thou hast faith until thy faith is exercised? Depend upon it, God often sends us trials that our graces may be discovered, and that we may be certified of their existence. Besides, it is not merely discovery, real growth in grace is the result of sanctified trials. God often takes away our comforts and our privileges in order to make us better Christians. He trains his soldiers, not in tents of ease and luxury, but by turning them out and using them to forced marches and hard service. He makes them ford through streams, and swim through rivers, and climb mountains, and walk many a long mile with heavy knapsacks of sorrow on their backs. Well, Christian, may not this account for the troubles through which thou art passing? Is not the Lord bringing out your graces, and making them grow? Is not this the reason why he is contending with you? (Charles Spurgeon)

“Trials make the promise sweet;

Trials give new life to prayer;

Trials bring me to his feet,

Lay me low, and keep me there.”

Signing off

Tyrone