Grace is not a spare Tyre

“………when we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.  And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation…” Romans 5: 6-9(New Living Translation)

In Nigeria, people see the Grace of God as this force with which we get by. When you are broke and manage to get a scrap for lunch, people make statements like “it’s just by the grace of God that I found something to eat” or “it’s just by the grace of God that I’m surviving” or “if not for the Grace of God, I would have died”.

Please do not misunderstand; it is by his grace and mercy that we are not consumed. We LIVE by faith in the Grace of God. Christ is our life; so we are what we are by grace. However, like Pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo would say, grace is not a spare Tyre we pick up only we are down. It is not the thing that just holds us up at our point of despair to our breakthrough and then leaves us. The Grace of God towards us is radical; it is the proof of the extent to which the Godhead will go to reconcile us back to himself. It is the barometer by which we weigh how much God loves us.

When Adam fell, he dragged all his descendants into a cesspool of Sin, resulting in a life of defeat and despair through death. We were doomed to sow in sweat and reap thorns and thistles. To cap it all up, we were separated from our relationship with God; our perspective of God had been obscured. We could no longer call him father.

However, God never loses, he wanted a family (Ephesians 1:5; 2:19), a bride (Ephesians 5: 25-27) and a dwelling place (1 Peter 2:4-5); and he would have it. And so he sent his only begotten son, that while we were under this curse and unable to save ourselves; he would absorb all of our Sin and sins (these are two different things) into himself and die a most horrendous death on a tree thereby serving our punishment. In that one moment, he rescued us from the power of Sin and Death. In the words of Brett Roberts, “Adam has been undone”. When the Son, Jesus the Christ died, his body was laid in a tomb for three days, his Spirit caged in hell and tormented. But on the third day, the Holy Spirit rose him up from the dead and gave him a resurrected body. This proves that his sacrifice was much more than adequate for Sin (1 Corinthians 15: 17). He arose and ascended into heaven to assume his role as the Second Person of the Trinity and he was given a name that is above every other name (Philippians 2:5-11). Since he did what he did for us, we died with him and having died with him; we resurrected with him on the third day, ascended with him and are seated at God’s right hand forever. This is the grace of God towards us!!

It is from this premise that we live and walk in constant victory, it is based on this premise that we do not look at our surroundings to discover whether or not God loves us, we look at that cross and see what he has done.

Grace is not a topic or a doctrine; it is not one of the things we teach in the Church amongst many other things and it definitely is NOT a spare Tyre for when we are in lack. Grace is the personality of Jesus Christ, it is the whole point of Christianity, and it is the source of our Faith. It is the violent expression of God’s love for us through the Crucifixion and death of his only begotten Son.

Grace and peace be multiplied to you,

Mayowa