An atheist said, “If there is a God, may he prove himself by striking me dead right now.”
Nothing happened.
“You see, there is no God.”
Some one said, “You’ve only proved that He is a gracious God.”
In Ephesians 1: 6-8, we read this:
“to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us.”
This grace was “freely bestowed” so we did not need to do anything to earn it.
It comes to us through Jesus Christ, described here as “the Beloved” of the Father.
Since God loves His Son infinitely and eternally, believers who are in Christ can rejoice that we, too, are the objects of God the Father’s infinite and eternal love.
God can lavish His grace on us only because of what Christ has done for us.
In Ephesians 1:3-14, we see all that Christ has done for us.
I encourage you to read these verses.
In the verses we are looking at we see that we are redeemed and have our sins forgiven.
Redemption in verse 7 means we are released from the slavery to sin.
It involves buying back and setting free by paying a ransom price, which was the precious blood of Christ.
The result of our being set free from sin’s slavery that this perfect sacrifice brought about is: God has forgiven our sins.
Since our redemption cost so great a price, the blood of Christ, this shows the supreme evidence of the riches of His grace which He lavished on us.
His grace is not just the bare minimum amount needed, but lavished grace!
There are so many other benefits of Christ’s death that Paul did not enumerate here that become ours the moment we trust Christ as our Savior.
Sergey Sudev was a journalism student in Komrat, Moldova.
Like many students, he was just trying to get through his courses and then hoped to find work.
Then there was a knock on his door that changed his life.
His uncle in Germany, whom Sergey had not seen for a decade, had died, and he had listed Sergey as the recipient of his assets—950 million Euros, which equaled 1.8 billion dollars.
In response to the news that he was now one of the wealthiest men in Moldova, Sergey reportedly said, “Is this a joke?”
We are spiritually wealth in Christ and it is not a joke!
Praise Him for His lavished grace!
Blessings!
Pastor Ken Keeler, Director of Church Minitries