Hymn – Saved, Saved (http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/s/a/savdsavd.htm)
Scriptures:
Ephesians 2 New Century Version (NCV)
We Now Have Life
1 In the past you were spiritually dead because of your sins and the things you did against God.2 Yes, in the past you lived the way the world lives, following the ruler of the evil powers that are above the earth. That same spirit is now working in those who refuse to obey God. 3 In the past all of us lived like them, trying to please our sinful selves and doing all the things our bodies and minds wanted. We should have suffered God's anger because we were sinful by nature. We were the same as all other people.
4 But God's mercy is great, and he loved us very much.5 Though we were spiritually dead because of the things we did against God, he gave us new life with Christ. You have been saved by God's grace.6 And he raised us up with Christ and gave us a seat with him in the heavens. He did this for those in Christ Jesus7 so that for all future time he could show the very great riches of his grace by being kind to us in Christ Jesus.8 I mean that you have been saved by grace through believing. You did not save yourselves; it was a gift from God.9 It was not the result of your own efforts, so you cannot brag about it.10 God has made us what we are. In Christ Jesus, God made us to do good works, which God planned in advance for us to live our lives doing.
One in Christ
11 You were not born Jewish. You are the people the Jews call "uncircumcised." Those who call you "uncircumcised" call themselves "circumcised." (Their circumcision is only something they themselves do on their bodies.) 12 Remember that in the past you were without Christ. You were not citizens of Israel, and you had no part in the agreements with the promise that God made to his people. You had no hope, and you did not know God.13 But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away from God are brought near through the blood of Christ's death.14 Christ himself is our peace. He made both Jewish people and those who are not Jews one people. They were separated as if there were a wall between them, but Christ broke down that wall of hate by giving his own body.15 The Jewish law had many commands and rules, but Christ ended that law. His purpose was to make the two groups of people become one new people in him and in this way make peace.16 It was also Christ's purpose to end the hatred between the two groups, to make them into one body, and to bring them back to God. Christ did all this with his death on the cross.17 Christ came and preached peace to you who were far away from God, and to those who were near to God.18 Yes, it is through Christ we all have the right to come to the Father in one Spirit.
19 Now you who are not Jewish are not foreigners or strangers any longer, but are citizens together with God's holy people. You belong to God's family.20 You are like a building that was built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Christ Jesus himself is the most important stone in that building,21 and that whole building is joined together in Christ. He makes it grow and become a holy temple in the Lord.22 And in Christ you, too, are being built together with the Jews into a place where God lives through the Spirit.
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This past Sunday, just as I was getting to church, the song “God Favors Me” by Hezekiah Walker came on the radio. For some reason, it touched me to the point of tears (I think now that it was God preparing me, sensitizing me to His Spirit of grace.) After the song ended and I went inside the church, I saw in the program that the topic for the day was “Saving Grace.” Grace, Favor. At the end of the service, the Pastor was singing the hymn, Saved, Saved.
I’ve thought of the hymn several times since (even to imagining singing it in an audition before the judges of Sunday Best, and just worshipping God, and having His Spirit manifest Himself during that time - hmmmm), and the grace, the cost, by which I have been saved.
It occurred to me today, that the “by grace” (in Ephesians 2:5) might also be understood as “for grace” as an additional reason for our salvation when considering v7 (Amplified translation):
7He did this that He might clearly demonstrate through the ages to come the immeasurable (limitless, surpassing) riches of His free grace (His unmerited favor) in [His] kindness and goodness of heart toward us in Christ Jesus.
Wow… how humbling…
Thank You, God, for Your amazing grace!!! There is so much more to Your grace...
[Christy Nockels, Grace flows down – (can be heard at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBPNdTowJuc)]
Help me, Lord, to be – to even want to be – an instrument of Your grace. That it would be seen, be manifested in, overshadow and overwhelm my life – only for Your glory. That others would experience it through their interactions with me, and would be drawn to Your sweetness, O God. More of You, less of me…
Revelation 1:4-6 (King James Version)
4John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne;
5And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,
6And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
... and my journey with Him continues ...
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