FRIDAY December 1st
Ephesians 2:4-9
‘But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, 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 coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.’
We will be considering these verses over a couple of devotions, for they are a great encouragement to us who have been saved and they offer hope to those who are not yet saved and are important verses for those who are seeking to be saved through any other means rather than through what Christ has done for us at Calvary.
These verses answer the question I ended with in our previous devotion, ‘How do we receive this wonderful gift?’ or ‘How can we be saved?’
Verse 8 tells us ‘by grace . . . through faith’ And Paul knows what he is talking about, because he would say that he of all people was underserving or unworthy of anything in regards to salvation, for he had put all his effort into trying to destroy the believers, but Jesus met with him and instantly he was saved and transformed and all by and because of the grace of God.
As Saul he could have boasted in so much, he tells us this in Philippians 3 but he says that who he was and what he had achieved as a Jew and as one who had kept the law counted as nothing. He says in verse 9 ‘not having a righteousness of my own that comes through the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.’ The words of a hymn come to mind, ‘Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the Cross I cling’ or the chorus that says ‘Christ is enough for me.’
Recently I brought ministry on a Friday evening based around the five ‘solas’ that came from out of the Reformation, summarized in this sentence ‘Christians are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, as revealed by Scripture alone, to the glory of God alone.’
Not one of us has been nor ever will be good enough to arrive in heaven though our own merit, it is only by grace and through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that we can be saved.
There was no other good enough,
To pay the price of sin,
He only could unlock the gate,
Of Heaven and let us in.