“That in the ages to come he [God] might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:7)
Not very long ago, a six-year-old boy named Andrew was saving money for a trip to Mexico with his family. His grandmother paid him a few dollars for doing some chores for her, and then right before he left on the trip, she decided to give him some extra spending money. When he saw how much it was, he couldn’t believe it. “Wow, twenty dollars!” he hollered, dancing around in a circle. He ran home to show his mom the $20 bill. “Look, Mom! Now I know what it feels like to be rich!”
Maybe getting a crisp $20 bill when it was not even your birthday would make you feel rich, too. Or maybe it would take a $100 bill. Maybe it might take a million before you would feel “rich.” No matter how much money you got, though, your riches could never compare to God’s. Not only does God own everything in the world, He has another kind of riches: riches of grace.
Grace is giving something good to someone who does not deserve it. Every person who is now saved once lived in total disobedience to God. Their lives were all about pleasing themselves and ignoring God. It does not seem fair that those people would get any special attention from Him, much less the chance to be in heaven with Him.
If God were fair, He would not give those people anything good. They do not deserve anything except to be punished! But God is not fair; He does not give people what they deserve. Instead, He is gracious. He does not give up on people who couldn’t care less about Him. Because He loves them – even though they are “dead in sins” – He gives them life.
Because God has exceeding riches of grace, He doesn’t have to be stingy with it. He doesn’t have to save up His grace to spend only on people who are trying hard to be good. Instead, since He has plenty of grace to spare, He pours it out on people who don’t deserve it.
The main reason Andrew’s grandmother gave him $20 was that she loved him. In Ephesians 2:4, Paul says that God’s reason for giving is the same: He gives His children salvation because of “the great love wherewith he loved us.” Just as Andrew did not do anything to earn his $20, God’s children cannot do anything to earn God’s gifts, either. God gives good gifts just because He loves His children.
Andrew’s grandmother is not rich enough to walk around town giving $20 bills to every little boy she sees. She decided to give one to Andrew, though, because she already had a special relationship with him. But for God to have exceeding riches of grace means that He can give grace even to people who are dead-set against Him.
God pours out the exceeding riches of His grace on people who do not deserve them.
My Response:
» Have I thanked God for spending some of His riches of grace on me even though I didn’t deserve them? Or have I thought that I earned them by something good that I did? (Read Ephesians 2:8-10 if you want to learn more about this.)