Bible Readings
We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved. (Acts 15:11)
For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. (Romans 6:14)
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no-one can boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:14-16)
Thought
Last week our car had to go into the garage for its MOT test. Each year it is essential that the car is checked over to ensure that it is roadworthy and an MOT test certificate gives us the reassurance that our car is safe to drive on the roads. Now our car is getting rather old and it has done quite a few miles, so I approached sending it to the garage for the test with just a little bit of trepidation. I hoped that it would pass, but was concerned that it might not. We took the car to the garage and then walked around for a while as we waited for the test to be carried out. We returned to the garage to bad news, the car had failed its test. The gentlemen at the garage handed me a piece of paper on which was printed very clearly, in bold type, the word ‘Fail’. Underneath was a list of why the car had failed. Some were just very minor matters (new bulbs needed in the indicators as they were no longer orange enough) but others were larger and more difficult to fix (problems with the brakes).
Three days later we returned the car to the garage to have its brakes fixed, the light bulbs having already been sorted, and I waited to see just how much it would cost us in order for the car to be mended so that it could then pass its MOT test and we could safely continue driving it.
We will all be judged by God. Some might see it a bit like an MOT test, God looking at us and seeing if we are heaven worthy, are we fit to enter heaven or do all our faults, minor or major ones, mean that we fail? Some might even ask what we need to pay to have our faults fixed, or what works do we need to do?
Thankfully for us, it is not like that, for indeed heaven would be a very empty place as we would all fail if it was. Mercifully for us it is by grace that we will enter heaven, it is our faith in Jesus Christ that means that when we stand before God, he will say that we can enter. And even better for us, the cost of getting us into heaven was not paid by us at all, the cost was paid by Jesus.
Prayer
Loving Father, we thank you that you loved the world so much that you gave your one and only Son, so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Amen
Only by Grace