It's All Grace

"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast."
Ephesians 2:8-9

I grew up in the Philippines, in a Christian home, where my parents taught my brothers and me about loving and trusting the LORD early on. My earliest recollections include my mother reciting Psalm 23 before praying over us, while we were about to sleep. From our nursery years, they faithfully brought us to Sunday Bible School at the First Baptist Church of Manila. I remember toddling about in a wooden crib in a soundproof room in the church’s mezzanine, while my parents sat listening to the pastor from an overhead speaker. However, it was only in Vacation Bible School (VBS), exactly 13 days short of my seventh birthday, when I came to a personal saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus. I remember my teacher recounting the story of Korah’s rebellion against God and against His anointed ones – Moses and Aaron – and how God opened up the earth to swallow up Korah and his followers in order to show the people of Israel that the LORD God was with Moses and Aaron. I remember her telling us that when the earth opened up, Korah and his followers went straight to hell, which the Lord Jesus described as a place where neither the worm nor the fire dies. She explained that we were all sinners and that God is holy – and that His Holiness cannot tolerate the merest speck of sin. As a sinner, I cannot do anything to save myself and go to heaven to be with God because His standard demands utter perfection. However, God loves me so much that He sent His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus, to die a gruesome death for my sins in my stead – that it is a free gift that I can neither earn nor ever deserve. But like any gift being offered, it would only be mine if I accept it. At this point, the horrible picture of hell was so vivid in my mind that during craft time, which I normally enjoyed, I remember being so disquieted that I approached my teacher to teach me how to pray to ask for God’s forgiveness and accept the Lord Jesus as my Savior. That VBS morning, she led me in the sinner’s prayer. Afterwards, I remember feeling like a big burden was lifted from me and that I had that assurance that I was saved. It would be a couple of years more before I followed the Lord in water baptism – not as part of what I had to do to be saved, but as a public declaration of God’s redeeming work in my life that started years before.

Through the years succeeding my conversion, I would be assailed by doubts regarding my eternal security, especially during times when I knew that I was willfully sinning against my God. In this, the LORD used passages such as Romans 8 and John 17 to continually assure me of my heavenly inheritance -- and that His grace is wholly unmerited favor: in Christ, nothing that I do (or not do) can ever make me lose God’s favor, because my salvation does not depend on me, but on the perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus. It is this very same lavish grace – His goodness – that either prevents me from sinning or brings me to repentance when I do.

At present, He is continuing to grow me in His Word, in prayer and in fellowship with Him and fellow believers. My heart’s desire is to grow more deeply in love with Him each day and to serve Him faithfully as He purposed me to do. I know that I am His work in progress and that whatever fruit I might manifest is all due to Him.

All glory and praises go to Jesus Christ, my Lord, my Saviour, the Bishop of my Soul and the Rock of my Refuge. He is my sole fixed point in this fleeting world. He is my Help and my Defense. Whenever circumstances tend to overwhelm me, He never fails to remind me that He is faithful to the uttermost. It is His grace that will see me through this life and beyond.

It just awes me to think that Almighty God – the Creator of Heaven and Earth – is my portion forever: that He is mine as much as I am His.