“God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.” Ephesians 2:8-9 (NLT)
I can still remember the excitement of getting to miss church so we could go visit my “Grandpa on the mountain.” Because there were usually surprises along the way.
An old service station at the bottom of the mountain where we would get root beers in glass bottles; a flea market where there were puppies for sale; the feeling that we were going to fall off the mountain as my dad drove way too close to the side.
But always, as we started down the dirt drive towards the old house, my excitement turned to nervousness.
Pictures of my Grandpa in his youth showed a tall, handsome, slightly arrogant looking man. But after years working in the coal mines, his looks and health prematurely withered.
He and my grandmother had divorced back before divorce was accepted as the norm. Both of them had bad tempers, but my Grandpa‘s violent temper was legendary.
Did he really beat his brother with a tire iron? You know he used to run moonshine, didn’t you? So you mean he uses those pretty roosters in fights? Does he really hit them with his cane?
I can barely remember him looking for the perfect stump to find fiddling worms for a fishing trip with my dad. Somewhere along the line, he started using a cane to walk.
More vivid are the memories of him angrily shaking his cane, demanding someone bring him “this or that” as he coughed and gasped for air. Somewhere along the line, an oxygen tank appeared along with a folded up napkin he kept in his hand for when the coughing fits hit.
And then came the appearance of an old Bible…
When they brought in the hospital bed, the old Bible and him became inseparable. He desperately clung to it, holding it tightly to his chest. Sometimes he would shake it at us while trying to tell us something very important that I could never quite understand.
And I remember being angry.
How dare you, I thought. How dare you try to act like you’re good now. Now that you are dying do you think you just get to grab a Bible and it will magically wipe out all the bad things you’ve done all your life? No, Grandpa, it doesn’t work like that. You haven’t done anything good. You don’t get to just go to heaven after all that stuff.
A couple of weeks ago, my pastor started a series of sermons on grace. How grace isn’t earned and we can’t lose it. None of us deserve it. It is God’s free and amazing gift to us. Tweet this!
He became emotional as he reminded us of the criminal who hung on a cross beside our Savior. About the saving grace our Lord extended to him, just moments before He died. How he wasn’t required to jump off the cross and make amends to all those he had wronged, go serve the poor and minister to the needy in order to be granted access to heaven.
My years of self righteousness melted away and in its place sprung up humility and gratefulness. And I marveled in the wonder I felt knowing that the only requirement from God was to accept His amazing gift of grace, which is wholly sufficient. Tweet this!
Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” And Jesus replied, “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Luke 23:42-43 (NLT)
But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. Romans 5:8 (NLT)
For “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Romans 10:13 (NIV)
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