It's All Grace
Dear Champions,
The short excerpt is by Tim Keller, and the Scripture is Ephesians 2:8-9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.
As you read the Bible you see the included and the excluded and the insiders and the outsiders. The women and sick are seen as outsiders, and the Bible shows them as being embraced by Jesus. Jesus comes for the excluded and rejects the included, right? No, we see Joseph who is an insider and a rich man, and he gets it (Luke 23:50-56). Even the rich, respectable, and moral insider gets it. What is it? It isn't your standing or performance or your goodness that merits salvation, but it is all grace.
In the history of the world women generally get it before men, the commoner before the elite, the poor before the rich; and the lay before the clergy. WHY? We see that success and accomplishment in general brings spiritual blindness. All other religious leaders overcome enemies and call us to follow them with our strength. Jesus is the only one who is killed by His enemies and wins by defeat and invites those who know they are weak to follow Him. Christian salvation was accomplished by weakness and repentance. This is totally different from all other religions, and it doesn't make sense to us that the failed and excluded get it faster. Jesus doesn't favor the excluded because they are excluded, but because of how salvation is accomplished the excluded tend to get it faster or easier.
Champions, have a great week!-David Vining
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