Is Grace Amazing?

Grace, that gift of God freely given to all who believe, that wondrous act which brought about our salvation, that thing which freed us from the debt of sin. It is no wonder that so many hymns and songs have been written about it: Amazing Grace, Your Grace Is Enough, Grace,Grace,God’s Grace, This Is Amazing Grace! It is at the core of our faith and that one thing which separates Christianity from all other religions. But is it really “amazing?”

First, let us look at what grace really is and does.

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Ephesians 2:1-9 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

We were by nature children of wrath. Dwell on that a moment. We deserve death and eternal punishment, but instead we have been saved by grace. It is a gift we could never earn or deserve. It is what caused Jesus to come and die in our place and take the punishment we deserve. We have been taken from the lowest place and raised not only to heaven, but to be seated with Christ, the King of Kings! As if that wasn’t enough, it also causes God to bestow endless gifts and blessings in His kindness on us. How amazing is that!

But do we live as if grace were amazing? When you look at your every day life, the way you think of yourself, the way you look at others, the way you live, does that amazing gift of grace have any influence?

Unfortunately, especially for those in countries of freedom and wealth, we often live as if grace were not that spectacular, or even as if it were expected. Grace has become a matter of course, even demanded on a regular basis so that has no longer become something by which we are amazed, but something that we require from God. How sad!

The reason we have adopted this view point is we are so used to it that we feel entitled. We have lost our view of what grace truly is because we have lost our view of who we truly are and were. We forget that we deserve eternity in hell, that our sin is supremely reprehensible to God. We forget the Gospel. I think we begin to believe that Jesus died for us because He needed us, instead of the other way around.

But grace is not free. We should never lose that perspective. We gained grace at great cost, not to us but to God. We need to remember that it cost the Son of God His life. We need to remember that it was grace that “saved a wretch like me!” Grace should be so precious to us! He died to pay a debt we never could afford, in order to give us a gift that we could never deserve!

Grace is amazing! And we need to live that way! It is only by God’s grace that we are any different from anyone else. We have no reason to boast or believe that we deserve any of the good things we have. We need to see every blessing as an undeserved gift of God. We need to live as though we have been unduly blessed beyond measure (because we have.) We need to make it our endeavor to share this wondrous gift with everyone we meet.