NGEN Blog
Grace & Faith
Posted 1 year ago - Apr 30, 2024
From: Admin UserFaith is an interesting thing; however, we don’t often give it much thought. Many times, you hear people reference having faith or using faith, you hear sayings like,
“Faith is having the courage to let God have control”
Cool. Real deep. Or maybe you’ve heard,“Faith is like WI-FI, it’s invisible but it has the power to connect you to what you need.”
I honestly don’t even know what that one means. So many times, we like to cheapen faith. We take this idea of trusting in an all-knowing, sovereign and loving God and compare it to a fickle WI-FI connection. Which brings me to 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, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
You’ve probably read these verses before and thought “yeah totally, grace and faith, gift of God, can’t boast, cool” But, have you taken the time to really look at what’s going on here? Paul is writing to the Ephesian Church and when he gets to the second chapter, he starts to explain the gift of salvation by combining grace and faith.THE POWER OF JESUS
We understand that salvation comes from Jesus, because of his life, death and resurrection. The Jesus’ sacrifice made it possible for us to receive forgiveness from God and the atonement (payment) of our sins. It’s this very act of grace that reverses the deep effects of sin. Our hearts were dead and because of Jesus, we see our dead hearts brought to life. This trade for death to life can be seen in the previous verses,- Dead in sin --> Alive together with Christ
- Sons of disobedience --> Raised up with Christ
- Children of wrath --> Recipients of mercy, love, grace & kindness
DO YOU GET FAITH?
Now that we’ve established the amazing grace of God through the saving work of Jesus, let’s talk about faith. If salvation comes to us by grace through faith, how do you get faith? Well, I can tell you that it’s not like WI-FI that drops in and out when there’s a bad storm. Grace is made possible due to the work of Jesus, and faith is made possible through salvation by God alone. Remember, by grace through faith. Our response to grace is faith in Jesus; faith is the vehicle to which we receive salvation. God grants us the faith to believe and receive Jesus for salvation. This is because, as mentioned in verse 8, salvation is not a work we accomplish but a gift from God.