July 8

Are you so foolish? After starting in the Spirit, are you now finishing in the flesh? — Gal 3:3 BSB

Grace literally means something we don’t have to earn. It always carries two main ideas: first, it comes to us freely, and second, it comes when we are helpless. Grace doesn’t just help those who help themselves—that’s not the Gospel. The Gospel is that God helps those who can’t help themselves. And there’s more: God helps us even to help ourselves, for everything we do ultimately comes from Him. Grace is given to the one so weak and helpless that they can’t take even the first step. That’s the meaning of grace, at least part of it—we can never fully grasp its richness.

Now, this river of grace is as free as it is full. But some people think that once they’ve gone a little further along, they’ll need to pay an admission fee. They believe that the higher blessings of the Gospel are reserved for a select few, and they shrink back from claiming them. But God hasn’t set apart the higher blessings for a separate class of Christians who are somehow nearer to Him. God is no respecter of persons.