Grace that Amazes

One of the recurring struggles every Christian without exception has is the struggle to realise how astonishingly blessed it is to be a Christian. I would like to remind you (and myself) of the vast, inconceivable privilege it is to be a Christian.

A Christian is someone who has been called by ‘the God of all grace . . . to his eternal glory’ (1 Pet. 5:10). If you are a Christian, even a weak, faltering, young, struggling, up-one-day-down-the-next kind of Christian, this is true of you. God has called you, in Christ, to his eternal glory. Think on it.

More than that, a Christian is someone whom God has called ‘into the fellowship (communion) of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord’ ( 1 Cor. 1:9). By his effective call, God has brought you out ‘from the domain of darkness and transferred (you) to the kingdom of his beloved Son’ (Col. 1:13). This is true of you, if your trust before God is alone in his Son, Jesus Christ. Take time to think on that.

Even more, if you are a Christian nothing and no-one ‘in all creation, will be able to separate (you) from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom. 8:39). In Christ, God has loved you with an everlasting love, with a love that will never fail you nor forsake you. It is a love sealed with the blood of Christ. God can no more stop loving you than he can stop loving his Son! Now that is something to stop and think about.

Let me continue: if you are a Christian you are ‘more than a conqueror through him who loved us’ (Rom. 8:37). More than a conqueror? Me? Yes, you. This is not true only of seasoned, mature, particularly holy Christians – it is true of all Christians, whether you feel it to be true or not. It must be true, because all Christians are ‘in Christ’, and he is God’s Conquering Son. He has conquered sin and Satan; he is King of all kings and Lord of all lords. In him we are all more than conquerors. At your weakest and most vulnerable, you are a super-conqueror (as Paul puts it).

Hopefully by now you are thinking, How astonishingly blessed I am. But there is so much more. Take the time to read slowly through Ephesians 1:3-14 and marvel at all that is true of you if you are a Christian. God has blessed you in Christ with every spiritual blessing; he chose you; he predestined you to be adopted as his children; he has redeemed you by the precious blood of his Son; he has given you ‘an inheritance’; and he has sealed you with the promised Holy Spirit. Wow!

Part of the good fight of faith is to resist the temptation to listen to the insinuations of Satan and to listen and take to heart the rich encouragements of the gospel. If you are a Christian, there is no one like you in all the earth – with all your hang ups, struggles, doubts, fears, yes, and even sins. You are in Christ, and in Christ ‘all things are yours’ (1 Cor. 3:21-23).

So, look up. Go on. Thank the Lord every day for all that is yours in his Son. This is not an excuse to sit back and cruise to glory. Rather it is an incentive to live with un-distracted endeavour for him who loves us in Christ with an everlasting love.

Ian Hamilton is Pastor of the Cambridge Presbyterian Church, now worshipping God on Sunday mornings in All Saints’ Church, Jesus Lane, Cambridge and in the Lutheran Church, Huntingdon Road, on Sunday evenings.

www.cambridgepres.org.uk