For Reading and Meditation:
Ephesians 1:1-14
What is it in the heart of most men and women that rejects the idea of God's free and generous offer of salvation? It is pride, the deadliest of all the deadly sins. Bernard Shaw, an example of a modern-day thinker, said: "Forgiveness is a beggar's refuge. We must pay our debts." But we cannot pay our debts. As our spiritual fathers saw so clearly, the only language we can use in the presence of a God who demands so much and whose demands we are unable to meet is: Just as I am without one plea But that Thy blood was shed for me, And that Thou bidd'st me come to Thee, O Lamb of God, I come, I come. In response to our coming, the free unmerited favor of God flows down to us, cancels our debt, imputes and imparts Christ's righteousness to us. How can Christ's righteousness be imputed and imparted to us? It's His righteousness, not ours. A simple illustration may help to illuminate this point. A dull little boy came home from school one day and said to his mother: "We've won a holiday." The truth was another boy had come top of the region in the examinations and the head teacher decided to give the whole school a holiday. Yet the dull little lad said: "We've won a holiday." Grace is like that. God permits the righteousness of Jesus to cover us and then, as we open ourselves to it - to enter us. He did it, but we benefit from it. Isn't grace really amazing?
O Father, as I contemplate still further the "riches" of Your grace, once again I have to confess it's truly amazing. No wonder men and women use that term to describe Your grace. No other adjective will do! Amen.