SUCCESS in life
is not what we often think it is. It’s not the acclaim or the acquisition of
acumen or achievement or assets. Success is not what we get but what we give.
Success is the extraordinary life lived. Success is what we all dream of but it’s
the paradoxical road that gets us there.
Grace is success. The person imbued by grace is
successful. They have contentment. Whether they have plenty or they lack means
little — life abounds in them and to them.
Here are four aspects of life-giving,
life-abounding grace:
Grace saves
us. God, through Jesus, stooped down from heaven,
by the Holy Spirit, and saved us. It is undeserved. We don’t deserve this mercy
from God. But we have been lavished with it. Grace saves us not only at our
salvation. It saves us continually. To be blessed like that is to live the
vibrant life that Jesus Christ came to give us access to.
Grace
sanctifies us. It renews us
miraculously. We are cleansed and purified by the Holy Spirit’s impelling. We
don’t even know why or how, but grace makes it easier to live a holy life. Our
interest in sin wanes, yet we still have a great time without judging others.
Grace sanctifies us without us insisting others be sanctified. We are simply
grateful that God has taken such an interest in us. We pray for such a gift to
be realised in others, too.
Grace enables
us to sacrifice. Grace (Greek: charis) is the exemplar that leads us in
how to love life, people, situations, even hardships, such that getting our own
way is no longer the point. If charis
is “a favour done without expectation of a payback” then we know it’s about
sacrifice, and we know that sacrifice is always about faith. And wherever faith
shows her face we can rest easy that hope isn’t far off. Sacrifice enables us
to ply faith hopefully — and grace is the actual empowerment.
Grace sets us
free. Whoever is free is free,
indeed. Grace has disinhibited us. We are set free from the chains of this
worldly life that bind us. Fears might be ever-present, and limits of
self-concept might drive us from doing what we could. But grace negates the
negative by giving it no attention in our lives.
Grace saves us, it sanctifies us, helping us to
sacrifice, so we are set free. Out of grace we can love others.
© 2015 Steve
Wickham.
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