REVEALED GRACE

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

2 Timothy 1:9b-10

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

When we choose to believe in Jesus Christ as Savior, we receive an unmerited salvation and promise of eternal life, not one gained by works but through faith and the unbelievable grace of God. It’s this incredible, amazing grace that we find the Apostle Paul expounding on as he writes to Timothy, the pastor of the Ephesian church who he mentored and prepared for missionary Christian ministry. Here’s what Paul says about grace:

This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 2 Timothy 1:9b-109b-10

Before we get into the particulars of these verses, I wanted to share an acrostic I have always used to help myself and others remember the core meaning of the word “grace”. It looks like this:

God’s

Reward

At

Christ’s

Expense

Before Jesus, all people were in opposition to God because of their sin. All had fallen short of His glory (Romans 3:23) and we’re walking a path to sure eternal damnation and torment at the hands of God’s wrath-driven judgment and punishment.

But God is not just a God who hates and judges sin. He is also a God who loves and forgives and redeems and pardons. He showed this by being willing to make a way for His people to avoid condemnation and Hell out of His love for them. It was His blessed reward of salvation for a people in dire need of intervention and saving, a reward that was unearned or deserved. It was a gift solely granted by grace.  

Going to our verses today, we are told that “this grace” was given to us by God in “Christ Jesus” and was done so “before the beginning of time”. In other words, the Lord God Almighty, the Maker and Master of the universe didn’t just make things up on the go. Rather, His plans were all laid out from the start to include the one to save sinners through His Son.

Now, while the plan for salvation through Jesus was set before creation happened, there was a set time for its revelation. We only need to read the Bible to see that it took a long time, the length of time covered in the Old Testament, an estimated 1,500 years. That’s a long time, generations upon generations, before God sent His Spirit to bring a divine conception to a virgin named Mary in Nazareth and the birth of His one and only Son, Jesus.

We know that Jesus would grow into manhood and spend three years of intense ministry work before being crucified and then resurrected through God’s power three days later. It was the final atoning sacrifice ever needed to bring about a restoration of God’s relationship with His people and from that point on, all who placed their belief in Jesus as the Savior who came to take away the sin of the world (John 1:29) would gain eternal life (John 3:16). Death would lose its sting for them, destroyed by the redeeming work of God through His Son, and they would gain victory over the grave, enjoying instead life and light everlasting within the immortality brought by God’s Gospel promise(1 Corinthians 15:55-58).

Friends, every morning when we wake, we should be giving thanks to God for the grace He revealed and granted through Jesus. For it’s the sure hope of salvation for those who believes in Jesus as Savior that sets us free in life to live without worry or fear knowing our future is already established and the best life is the everlasting one still to come.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.