Really Free Indeed

        I receive many advertisements for items that are labeled as being “free.” About the only things I have that were free were the bag of goodies that I got at the recent senior fair from the chamber of commerce in the town of Vinton, Virginia. Of course, it all had advertising on it and consisted of jar openers, rulers, ball point pens, note pads and about 25 cents worth of candy. One man came to my door and offered me several hundred dollars of free things for my home security. I accepted his gift of free things and now I am paying about 50 dollars a month for this service. Well, I knew it was coming as there are very few things in this life that are really free. Titus 2:11-13 says, “ For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;”

       In all of the best things around in this life, this is the greatest one of all. Grace is absolutely free. In fact, if there were any strings attached, then grace wouldn't be grace, but would be something else. As believers, we always connect grace with salvation based upon Ephesians 2:8-10. It is by grace that we have been saved. The epistle to Titus then refers to this grace as having appeared to all men. That took place in the first Advent of the Lord Jesus Christ and is till being fulfilled through missionary involvement even today. It is nothing like a secret or a difficult code that must be broken but is apparent to all through the teachings of the Bible. Basically, it is wonderful and it is free and as a result cannot be earned in any way, shape or form. In a recent devotion, we discussed how God's grace is sufficient for us to meet any difficulty in life. Today's passage describes how we can live our lives in this world and what God's grace teaches us. Our goal should be to live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world. There is no fence, there is no leash or a rope that binds us to do the things that we ought to do. We do them because of the price that was paid for our sins. We could not pay the debt that we owed but God gave us a way to have it paid in full. Now, we walk in the way that God intended us to walk as described in today's passage because of His wonderful plan of salvation. A lot has been said trying to define grace such as that it was the unmerited love of God towards us, or the acronym, God's Riches At Christ's Expense and these are all true, but they may still fall short of trying to define God's grace. Maybe it is time not to try to fully define it, but just to accept it. God's grace can be personified in the Lord Jesus Christ as it is mentioned in the above passage. The Grace of God that brought salvation was the Lord Jesus Christ. While grace is sufficient for all of our problems in life, it is also something for which to praise God on a daily basis. May we always be thankful for His grace in our lives.