Easter Grace

This week is a week of remembrance and celebration for Christians.  It is the annual week of remembering Christ’s final journey into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday), his death on a Roman crucifixion cross (Good Friday), and celebrating his resurrection from the dead (Easter Sunday).  His death and resurrection are important because he took the sins of every human being on himself and then conquered death once and for all for everyone.  The victory has been won, and nothing will ever change that!

God chose to send his only Son, Jesus, into this world as a fully human/fully divine baby to live alongside us and complete the process of death and resurrection because of one character trait: his grace.  He didn’t ask anyone to earn the right to be saved by his Son’s actions; he just did it because he wanted to.  Because he loved us.

God’s grace has many different aspects to it.  It begins with the grace that moved him to send his son into the world to provide a final remedy for the problem of sin and our need for salvation.  But it doesn’t stop there.  God’s grace is also available to us as we continue to live our lives after salvation to enable us to resist sinning.  There is supposed to be freedom when we live in God’s grace – not the legalism that following rules brings.  The Bible also teaches us the sufficiency of God’s grace when we face troubles                    (2 Corinthians 12:9) and the importance of extending grace to others (Colossians 3:12-14).  More about those parts of grace another time. . .  

Grace is complicated, but it starts with God’s simple love for us and his willingness to do whatever was necessary to have a relationship with you and me.  That’s the importance of God’s grace – it restores a broken relationship between us and him.  This is a good week to focus on God’s grace as we remember Christ’s death and celebrate his resurrection again.  And it’s also a good week to think about becoming vessels of his grace to those around us, so that we “don’t receive God’s grace in vain”                    (2 Corinthians 6:1).  Have a wonderful Easter week!