APPRECIATING THE GRACE OF GOD IN 2024
As we begin a new year, growth is on most people’s minds. There is something about a new year that brings fresh invigoration and excitement to tackle new goals in our lives. These goals include health, finances, family, relationships, work, and more. As you read this, I am confident you have already identified, written down, and begun to pursue some of these goals (i.e., New Year resolutions).
Goals, indeed, are important. They provide us with markers and achievements to aim at. Without goals in life, we can fall victim to the tyranny of the urgent, and before we know it, months, maybe years, have gone by, and we have not made progress in key areas of our lives. Areas of our lives in which we’ve longed to see improvement. It’s when we get a moment to assess our lives we can’t help but feel the weight of wasted time and opportunities. We sit and wonder, “Where would I be today if I had been more intentional?” Goals are important because they can keep us from drifting through life aimlessly.
For the Disciple of Jesus, setting goals is all the more critical. There is no category in the Scriptures that allows for Disciples to live life aimlessly. The reason for this is simple. The Christian life is a life of stewardship. This includes our faith. According to the apostle Paul, our faith has been given to us as a gift from God (Eph. 2:8). And with this gift comes the responsibility to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which we have been called (Eph. 4:1; Phi. 1:27). The reason for this is so that God is glorified through us living lives that proclaim His excellencies (1 Pet. 2:9).
For the disciples of Jesus living out a biblical worldview, their goals, no matter the category, will be aimed at God being glorified. Remember what Paul writes to the Disciples in Corinth, “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31).
In what follows, I’d like to propose a goal for you to pursue this year. This goal is to grow in your appreciation for the grace of God. The Christian life is a life covered in grace. From the moment of our salvation to the moment of our future glorification (1 John 3:2), it’s all grace. Here are three ways you can aim to grow in appreciation for God's grace this year.
Reflect Upon God’s Saving Grace
Amazing grace! how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch; like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.- John Newton
Before you were made alive, you were spiritually dead. Before you were brought near to God, you were far off. Before you had a love for God, you possessed animosity and indifference toward Him. What changed? Paul tells us in his epistle to the Ephesians, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8). God’s saving grace conquered your rebellious heart. There’s no boasting because there was no earning on our part. Grace, as it pertains to salvation, is the decision and the act of God to bless undeserving sinners with the unearned gift of salvation.
Reflecting upon God's saving grace should be a daily discipline in our lives. We should never tire of remembering the day or season when grace flooded our hearts by the work of the Spirit as He directed our hearts to surrender to Christ.
Ask God for His Sustaining Grace
The Christian life will not shield you from the heartaches and pains of life. In fact, because of our faith, Jesus promises that the world will hate you. Remember the words of Christ to His disciples, “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.” (John 15:18-19).
Whether it’s hostility from the world or the various trials of life (James 1:2), you will experience the hardships of life as a believer. In these times, you and I are reminded of our neediness. We recognize our weakness in seasons like these in a fresh way. The beauty of the Christian life, though, is that we have access to sustaining grace. This present grace from God enables and equips you to glorify God in whatever season you are in. The Apostle Paul reminds us of this when he recalled the words of Christ to him when he felt particularly weak, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
Rejoice As You See God’s Sanctifying Grace
The Grace of God not only saves and sustains the believer, it also sanctifies them. Paul, in writing to Titus about the topic of grace, declares, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, (Titus 2:11-12). The Puritan Thomas Brooks put it this way, “Saving grace makes a man as willing to leave his lusts as a slave is willing to leave his galley, or a prisoner his dungeon, … or a beggar his rags.” This is sanctifying grace. Grace that makes us more like Christ our Savior.
Grace does not provide a believer with the license to sin. Grace provides believers with the ability to say no to sin. This is because, as Romans 6 tells us, the believer who truly encounters God’s Saving Grace has been changed at the core of their being. Their bondage under sin has been broken, and they’ve become new creations in Christ (Romans 6:1-14; 2 Corinthians 5:17). As new creations, God's grace teaches and instructs the believer to say no to sin and yes to righteous living. This is sanctification, which is the result of God’s sanctifying grace. Rejoice when you see the evidence of God’s grace at work in your life to make you more like Christ.
Brothers and sisters, as disciples of Jesus, go all in on setting and pursuing goals for 2024. My simple encouragement is that you add to the list the goal of growing in your appreciation for the grace of God. This goal will most directly help you and me live ON MISSION for the glory of God this year!