the Fourth Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Grace for Today
Acts 10:35
‘He that feareth God and worketh righteousness, is accepted of him’
Read 2 Peter 1:1-21
Saving grace causes every believer to fear God. This is not a slavish fear, or morbid dread of punishment. Cain feared God’s judgment. Pharaoh feared God’s wrath. Judas feared God’s punishment for sin in hell. Yet they were all lost. The fear of God produced by grace is a loving reverence for God. To fear God is to believe him, love him, seek his honor and endeavor to please him with a willing heart. This kind of fear is always produced by God’s saving grace. Faith in Christ teaches us the fear of God.
The grace of God that brings salvation causes every believer to perform works of righteousness (Ephesians 2:8-10). Works of righteousness have nothing to do with religious separation and isolation (Romans 14:17). Most people think they are doing works of righteousness when they quit smoking, quit dancing, quit going to the films and quit playing cards. Those things may be all right, but they have nothing to do with works of righteousness. Works of righteousness are those things which God’s people do with a willing heart for the benefit of others and for the glory of God. Works of righteousness are works of love, arising from a willing heart. Works of righteousness are works of self-denying generosity. Works of righteousness are works of love, kindness, thoughtfulness and charity towards men, and works of faith and devotion to God.
All who are saved by the grace of God fear God and do works of righteousness, and they are accepted with God. This is salvation, to be accepted with God. To be accepted with God is to be one with Christ. To be accepted with God means that God accepts me, accepts every gift I bring to him and accepts every work I endeavor to perform for him through the merits and mediation of Christ. To be accepted with God means that God will reward me with eternal glory in the Day of Judgment, because he has made me both sinless and perfectly righteous through the blood and righteousness of his Son. All who trust Christ are ‘accepted in the beloved’ (Ephesians 1:6). Do you suppose God will accept you? If you are in Christ, he will.
