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Qualified Through Grace

 Romans 5:21 - “so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

We experience salvation through the grace of God.  Warren Wiersbe writes, “Grace means salvation completely apart from any merit or works on our part. Grace means that God does it all for Jesus’ sake! Our salvation is the gift of God.” Ephesians 2:4-5 says, “But God who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).” 


It is the grace of God that qualifies us to spend eternity with Christ.  It is not our good works or deeds.  It is not religious activities or church membership.  The Apostle Pauls wrote in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”


A. W. Tozer writes, “Grace is the good pleasure of God that inclines Him to bestow benefits upon the undeserving. Its use to us sinful men is to save us and make us sit together in heavenly places to demonstrate to the ages the exceeding riches of God’s kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” Romans 5:1-2 says, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”


John Stott defines grace as “love that cares and stoops and rescues.” Romans 3:24-25 says, “being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed.”


Julia H. Johnson penned the words of the beautiful hymn, “Grace Greater Than Our Sin,” in 1910.  The lyrics are as follows:


          Marvelous Grace of our loving Lord,

Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt!

Yonder of Calvary’s mount out-poured,

There where the blood of the lamb was spilt.

Refrain:

Grace, grace, God’s grace,

Grace that will pardon and cleanse within;

Grace, grace, God’s grace,

Grace that is greater than all our sin!


Romans 5:20 says, “Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.”

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