2 Thessalonians 1:12b: Serving grace.(please click here for todays Bible passage)

‘’…according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.’’

Everything in the Christian life is ‘’…according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.’’

This applies to:

  • Our entire experience of salvation (5-10);
  • The ability to persevere through trials (3,4);
  • The answers to prayers for spiritual growth (11, 12). In our passage it seems to particularly relate to this latter point – and especially to the request about the double glorification: Christ in us and us in Him.

Grace is (God’s) undeserved favour. Everything we receive from God comes to us as an unearned and undeserved gift. We can’t boast about these things or consider that we merit them. We don’t.

John Stott wrote that not only is there saving grace, but there is also such a thing as serving grace. It takes grace to make a person into a Christian; but it also requires grace to live as a Christian. We sometimes fail to grasp this. We can’t live the Christian life from out of our finite resources, but according to God’s infinite riches.

Grace:

  • It is God’s undeserved blessing on our lives in Christ;
  • It is the divinely bestowed ability to live the life of a Christian disciple;
  • It is deeply humbling and reminds us that we will always be incapable on our own;
  • It brings us to our knees in wonder and causes us to sing that it is

‘’Grace is behind and through all of this, our God giving himself freely, the Master, Jesus Christ, giving himself freely.’’ The Message.

Could there be a more fitting conclusion to this first chapter? It provides the key to everything we have read in it.

Prayer: Thank you that I am not alone, or left to my own devices.