What the World Needs Now is Grace God’s Grace

By:  Dale Weckbacher

Ephesians 2:8-9

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

(ESV)

As the Christmas season approaches, it is a time when people are both busy and stressed out but also full of joy as they anticipate the joys which come at Christmas time.  Many of us are stressed with buying gifts, wondering if the late gifts we ordered online will arrive on time.  We stress when we drive into the parking lot of the store and realize we must trek for what seems like miles to the front door of the store.  In the stores, it seems like wall-to-wall people all stressed out as we are and let us not forget the stressed-out store employees working long hours while trying to maintain their cheerful attitudes. 

However, we can also find joy this time of year in giving gifts to those we love and receiving gifts given out of love from others.  Many of us also find joy in having a few days off work.  Still others find joy in either traveling to see family of having family traveling to see them.  My prayer for my readers is that they can focus on the joyful parts of the season and allow these joys to help them through the stressful parts of the season.

The year is also thankfully coming to a close.  While the year has been a roller coaster ride with a contentious Presidential election in the United States and other parts of the world, the year ends with hope that things will improve.  However, not everyone shares my optimism, like Michele Obama who has said the United States is heading into a time of hopelessness after the Donald Trump electoral victory.  (1)  However, I, and I hope my readers, am approaching the coming year with hope it will be better than the past year.

Dionne Warwick made famous the song “What the World Needs Now Is Love.”  While love is the ingredient necessary to change the hearts of people across the world and bring about lasting change, only one type of love is sufficient to bring about this change.  That love is the love of God our creator that was made available to everyone through the grace of God when he sent the world his only begotten son.  What the world really needs now, in fact what the world has needed since the fall of Adam and Eve from the Garden is grace God’s grace. 

The good news is that God’s grace is free for Jesus already paid the price through his death on Calvary.  This is great news for us all for due to the fall of Adam and Eve, we are born under the curse of sin (Ephesians 2:1-3) and therefore need to accept this free gift to be saved.  Failure to do so leaves us under the curse of sin with the penalty of death (Romans 6:23). 

This gift is not something God was required to give for God could have evicted Adam and Eve from the garden and left them to die in their sins.  Fortunately, God has great love for humanity and thus created a path through Jesus Christ for humanity to be saved and restored humanity to the position he intended at creation (Ephesians2:4-7). 

For this reason, Paul could write in Ephesians 2:8-9 that our salvation is not the result of our own good works but the work of God’s Son Jesus Christ on the cross.  This does not mean we should abandon our good works for they most likely serve to improve humanity but instead changes the purpose of our good from trying to earn salvation to an expression our love for Jesus Christ and sharing that love with others in need of God’s salvation. 

This is the greatest joy one can experience both during the Christmas season and throughout the rest of the year.  I therefore want to share this great gift with anyone reading this who has yet to unwrap it by taking a moment to pray with me,

Dear Lord Jesus, I know I have sinned (Romans 3:23) and know that the penalty for my sin is death (Romans 6:23).  I ask you to forgive me of my sin and cleanse me as you promise in your Word (1 John 1:9).  I believe you died, was buried, and resurrected from the dead and now declare you Lord of my life.

Many of us are guilty of re-gifting a gift we did not like.  However, I want to encourage everyone to freely re-gift the gift of salvation from God by sharing the good news of what God has done for you with others.  While re-gifting usually results in our losing the gift given to us, when we re-gift the gift of salvation with others, we do not lose our own salvation but instead multiply it.  When we do, we will be giving others what they need most, grace God’s grace. 

Merry Christmas everyone. 

1. Staff, WITW. Michelle Obama says America is entering a time of hopelessness. nytlive.nytimes.com. [Online] The New York Times, December 16, 2016. [Cited: December 17, 2016.] http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2016/12/16/michelle-obama-says-america-is-entering-a-time-of-hopelessness/.