Tuesday

The Gift of Grace

John 14:6
"I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but by Me.”

Jesus isn’t being intolerant, arrogant, or closed minded when He says, “No one comes to the Father but by Me.” He’s offering the greatest gift He can give, Himself. He’s offering grace and forgiveness. And He’s giving us the answer to the question that (on some level) every person who ever lived has asked, “What must I do to be saved?”

There are a lot of well-meaning people out there who sincerely struggle with the simplicity of the grace of God. They say, “Surely it can’t be that easy. There has to be more to it,” or “How could God exclude everyone who has lived a good, moral life like Muslims, Jews, etc. just because they don’t believe that Jesus is the only way to God?”

For every religion on earth, their only hope for salvation rests on their ability to follow certain rules and traditions, and in the end, they are banking it all in hopes that it will be enough to save them.

Where religion says, “I’ll do it.” The gospel says, “God did it.” You see, there is nothing in us that gives us the ability to save ourselves. But the Good News is that Christ did what we could not. Christ took our sin and in return gave us His righteousness (Romans 3:21-26).

As well-meaning as it may sound, to trust in our own ability to save ourselves is by default rejecting the gift of salvation that Christ sacrificed so much to purchase for us. When we try to fix ourselves, it's as if we hear Jesus saying on the cross, "It is finished," and we answer back, "Not quite." In Hebrews 10, the bible compares that to “trampling the Son of God underfoot, counting the blood of the covenant by which we were sanctified a common thing, and insulting the Spirit of grace.”

How amazing is it that God offers us a gift as great as salvation?! And He is pleading with you to receive it.