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I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing! Galatians 2:21

I remember a story I once heard about a man who placed biographical books on a bookshelf. The ‘better’ the people, the higher up on the shelf they would go. So, the saintly people, such as Mother Teresa, had their books on the highest shelf, good people had the middle shelves, and then people like Adolf Hitler had their books way on the bottom nearest to the floor.

The man was then asked at which tier people made it to heaven. He pondered, pored over the books on the shelves and debated where to make the cut. He couldn’t decide where to make the cut when the true answer was revealed to him by a wise sage. He drew a line right down the middle vertically from the top to the bottom shelf, dividing the bookshelf into two. The man was confused and the sage explained that what determined whether someone got to heaven or not wasn’t dependent on his or her merits or moral character – it was whether he or she accepted Jesus. And irrespective of their biographical story, as long as they accepted the grace of God in His gift of salvation, they could have eternal life. 

That story might not sit well with some of us who think that people who spent their lives doing wrong can enter heaven the same way  saintly people can, but that is the lavish gift of grace that God gives us through Jesus. We can do nothing to earn it and nothing we do makes us deserve it. We cannot ‘work’ our way up to heaven by following the law and being righteous; we enter heaven by accepting that Jesus died for us. 

His gift of grace meant giving His life so that we could have life everlasting. His gift of grace means giving us God’s riches at Christ’s expense. Oh, what a precious gift we have! 

Let us reflect on the “cost of grace” by: 

• Thanking God for the preciousness of His priceless gift of grace for us.
• Praying that we will seek and understand what it means to truly live under God’s grace.