THE FOUNDATION OF GRACE! # 2

Is your house on a good foundation? If a severe flood were to ravish your neighborhood could your house sustain its force? We all hope so! If we did not build our house or supervise the installation we would have to depend on the builder or architect who built our homes.

As Christians one of the aspects of our faith that should cause us to rejoice is that the foundation of our faith does not rise or fall based on our doings or building. Praise God we can rejoice that indeed He is the great master builder! The Psalmist declares this truth in, Psalm 127:1 Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.

The essence of this passage is grace, marvelous grace! It's the Lord that builds the house. The Lord of glory did not ask our permission to build. The giving of His only begotten Son and the building of His Chruch originated in the grace and love of a sovereign God! The apostle Paul reflecting on the insurmountable task of his apostleship was overwhelmed that not only did God call him to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ but that any and all success comes from Him from whom all blessings flow! For we read in 1 Corinthians 3:6-11 "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building. 10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. 11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ."

The foundation of grace is to be found in the love of God before the foundation of the world.
Ephesians 1:3-6 "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved." As Christians if we miss the mark in our understanding concerning the foundation of grace every aspect of our Christian life and ministry will be skewed by seeking to please God and endeavor to build His Church in our own strength, with man being the main emphases (the center of the stage).

At this point take a quick look at your christian experience and see if the grace of God is its main feature, or are we leaning on our efforts or His, which cannot fail! (Proverbs 3:5) It is absolutely critical for the proper maintenance of our souls that we get grace right!!! Its God's grace and only God's grace that will and can sustain us when the sorrows and trails of this world come our way. If God's grace is flowing through our souls we can say with Job even when disaster destroys all that he held dear in this world in Job 19:24-27 "Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever! 25 For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. 26 And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, 27 whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me"
Or with the Psalmist in Psalm 73:26 26 "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever"

Surly we should sing with John Newton with great fervor, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,That saved a wretch like me.I once was lost but now am found,Was blind, but now I see.

Next Post: The foundation of Grace: Its built upon a ROCK!