Cleaning Grace

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.”—Titus 2:11-12

God’s grace gives us life, incredible life. Grace is an unmerited gift. In other words, grace gives us what we don’t deserve. Mercy, on the other hand, is a withholding of what we do deserve. So, grace is a gift. And salvation is entirely by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). What does that mean? It means that neither you nor I can do anything to earn God’s salvation. We can’t buy it. We can’t be good enough. We can’t be holy enough. We can’t be righteous enough. We can’t give enough, do enough, go to church enough, serve enough, read enough, pray enough, or anything else enough to get God’s salvation. As the prophet Isaiah described it,

“We have all become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
We all fade like a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away” 

—Isaiah 64:6

As Francis Chan wrote in his book Crazy Love, concerning this passage,

“The literal interpretation of ‘filthy rags’ in this verse is ‘menstrual garments’ (think used tampon…and if you’re disgusted by that idea, you get Isaiah’s point). It’s hard to imagine something more disgusting that we could brag about or put on display. But compared to God’s perfect holiness, that’s how our good deeds appear”—Chan, p. 60.

We can’t be good enough in the sight of God—the only way we are made good is by appropriating Christ’s sacrifice continually by faith. Christ’s atoning work on the cross, so meritorious in the sight of God because of who it is that did it, enabled grace to flow freely unto us by faith. And this same grace that saves us also trains us. Like a powerful personal trainer, the grace of God trains us by enabling us to come back again and again to the throne of grace where we are allowed to witness, remember, and appropriate to our sin Christ’s atoning work on the cross. Our sin has been paid for! We can’t pay the price! It has already been paid! Therefore, as we continually go back to the throne of grace we are able to see what our sin cost, but we are also able to see again and again that we don’t have to continue in sin! We can say “No!” to sin and “Yes!” to holiness, self-control, and uprightness in this present-day sin-infested world!

My brother or sister, are you in need of God’s grace for today? Then by faith in Christ and what He has done, go to the throne of grace and God will give it to you! He will give it to all those who come under the banner of Christ’s forgiveness, aware of their sinful condition of condemnation in the face of the Thrice Holy, save for what Christ has done! And for those who come in contrition, brokenness, and humbleness of heart, He will rain down upon you such grace that will cleanse your soul from sin, refresh your spirit, and encourage and challenge your soul to go forth as a clean vessel of truth, filled with the knowledge of Christ and the desire to spread the fragrance of His salvation to a world drowning in its own sin! May God grant us this grace and may we step out in it boldly and in full confidence that will continually bring life to souls lost and dying in sin! Amen.