The acronym for grace is God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. In an earlier devotion we shared that Christianity’s concept of grace is unique to it. Grace is God’s unmerited favor and it is His free gift to us. God’s salvation is a free transaction. When you embrace and believe in Christ you enter into an incredible free exchange. You get to give up your lying, cheating, and substance abuse ways and in return get peace, joy and meaning in abundance – and it’s a free gift from God. All other religions require you to earn your salvation – an impossible feat.
The only problem with earning your salvation is that all other religions present us with the idea that if you do enough good works, that they will somehow outweigh your bad works, and earn you favor with whatever deity you choose as your God. But the Bible says sin is the real problem and that no matter how many good works you do, you still must face the fact that you come to God with a lifetime full of sin. And the Bible tells us that an infinitely holy God can’t allow for even committing one sin, to earn your way into His holy heaven. God must judge sin and doing good works, as a way to earn your way back into God’s good graces, doesn’t work. And that’s where grace comes in.
God’s judgement requires payment for sin, but his love offers pardon – and grace is the vehicle that bridges this impossible dilemma for us. Impossible, because we can never pay the price for our sin, but God paid it for us when Jesus went to the cross as our sin substitute. Grace is such an amazing concept. It basically says God imputes Christ’s righteousness to us and take our sins upon His body in return. All we have to do is believe that Christ is the son of God and accept His free pardon for our sins. This free transaction is free for us but it cost Christ His life at Calvary. For we read in (Ephesians 1:7): “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.”
So, Christianity is unique among all the religions of the world. It states we can never earn our way back to God through good works. But we can have our severed relationship with God wonderfully restored through the blood of Calvary – through grace – God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense!