Grace.

I have never sat still for a few hours and simply thought about grace. But yesterday, I did.  During those few hours I laughed, I cried, I wondered, I imagined, and I felt rather like a child who one day realizes that he has failed to completely unwrap a gift given him long ago, tearing off only enough of the paper to see what is inside, but stopping before reaching the treasure. 

We have been saved by grace alone. 

All that is asked of us is to lay down our lives at the feet of the King. 

Grace.

A free gift that is so often not freely accepted. Why? It is a gift of forgiveness, of life for eternity in place of death and punishment. Why do we struggle to add something more to it, or say that it is not enough? Why do we continue to walk with a head hung in shame when God has cast our sins as far as the east is from the west and made us into a new, blameless creation?

Grace. It is the greatest gift we have been given, and so many of us barely unwrap it. 

Grace. It is the gift of life as it was meant to be, lived in intimate relationship with our Maker. Pure, raw, radical, supernatural, life-changing grace that was won by a journey that led from the light of heaven to a bloodbath of brutality to the depths of hell and back again. 

Grace. It is a gift that was won by the ultimate sacrifice, but a gift that is freely given if we will only believe, unwrap, and step into the new life it makes possible. 

To cling to feelings of failure or inadequacy or shame is to insult the sacrifice made at the cross. It is a scandalous gift that changed the course of history. It is our only hope of salvation, but it is more than that. It is the key that unlocks the door to a life of relationship and freedom and power and raw, radical love. It swings open the door between us and our Creator and bridges the chasm between. It gives us a glimpse of His power and love and nature that is more than enough to cause us to run hard after Him for all of eternity. 

A single glimpse, and life is changed forever. 

A single glimpse, and we are wasted for anything but loving Him with all our lives.

A single glimpse, and laying down our lives becomes a joy.

To try to add to grace takes away its power to truly and radically transform our lives, because the essence of grace is its complete sufficiency. It is enough. It has no need for further striving or works on our part. It requires us to humble ourselves and accept it freely, admitting that we are incapable of attaining salvation by any amount of merit or good works, humbling ourselves at the foot of the cross and looking with all of our strength to Jesus... for only when we take our eyes fully off of ourselves will we be able to put them fully on God and understand the depth of the wonder and possibilities given us through grace.