“…since
it is through God’s kindness, then it is not by their good works. For in that
case, God’s grace would not be what it really is—free and undeserved.” Romans 11:6
The
kindness of God translates into His free and undeserved favor. It is referred to as His grace. It isn’t something a
person can earn thru good works for it is a free gift. The word free is important because it stands
for the fact that no payment is due, nor would any payment we could make be
enough. It is undeserved because nothing
we could ever say or do would make us worthy of such kindness. We are by nature prone to sin. If given the option to live a godly life or
live any way we chose our natural tendency would be to live as we chose to
without any restrictions. This is why
Christ died on the cross; to pay for our natural tendency to sin.
Next to
salvation itself, our greatest gift might just be our free will to choose. We make decisions every day, some trivial,
some based on wants and/or needs and some life altering. How will we choose properly? Without a personal relationship with God we
wouldn’t be aware of or be inclined to follow any godly standard, thus we would
be hard pressed to make the godly choice.
We must truly get to know our Maker to even begin to understand what is
required of us as His children. Even the
children of mortal men grow into the responsibilities that they are given by
virtue of being their parents children. It should be no different with Almighty
God.
In the above
verse Paul is speaking of the Israelites who have remained faithful to
God. It was God’s grace that caused that
to take place as well. We should have a
sense of deep indebtedness to the Jewish people, for it was their rejection of
Christ that brought about the portion of God’s plan to reveal the gospel of
salvation to the Gentiles. Of course,
God knew all of what would take place ahead of time, but you have to marvel at
the precision with which His plan has taken place. Knowing that our future is secure is all the
more reason to live our lives out as faithful ambassadors for Christ.
Resource:
Life Application Study Bible New Living
Translation, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2012.
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