WHAT’S SO AMAZING ABOUT GRACE? – Part 1

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith -- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -- not by works, so that no one can boast.”  (Ephesians 2:8-9 NIV)

It is commonplace in all the churches to call Christianity a religion of grace… It is a staple diet in the Sunday School that grace is “God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.” And yet, despite these facts, there do not seem to be many in our churches who actually believe in grace… They may pay lip service to the idea of grace, but there they stop. Their conception of grace is not so much debased as non-existent. The thought means nothing to them; it does not touch there experience at all. Talk to them about the church’s heating, or last year’s accounts, and they are with you at once; but speak to them about the realities to which the word “grace” points, and their attitude is one of differential blankness. They do not accuse you of talking nonsense; they do not doubt that your words have meaning; but they feel that, whatever it is you are talking about, it is beyond them, and the longer they have lived without it the surer they are that at their stage of life they do not really need it. 

-- J. I. Packer in “Knowing God”

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