We Must Accept God’s Grace

“The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23 NLT, second edition)

The Bible says in Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord” (NLT, second edition). You might say that grace is the gift that keeps on giving. When you get to know Jesus Christ and his grace and love, it gets better and better and better. It is available and extended throughout eternity. The best is yet to come!

What’s Heaven going to be like? You’re going to be reunited with loved ones who know the Lord. You’re going to be rewarded for your faith. You’re going to be reassigned a position of work that you love to do. You’re going to be released from pain, depression, despair, shame, and guilt, and you’re going to rejoice and party for eternity. What a deal!

But there’s a catch: You have to accept it.

If you went home today and found a gift on your table, but you left it there for the next year, unopened, that would be pretty dumb. A gift is worthless unless you accept it. You must accept God’s grace through his Son, Jesus Christ.

Some of you have held off because you’re afraid of being rejected. Maybe you were rejected by your parents. Maybe you were rejected by a boyfriend or a girlfriend, and that hurt really bad. Or maybe you were rejected by a brother or sister or by kids on the playground. Some of you have been rejected by a former husband or wife who walked out on you and said very hurtful things that you still think of today.        

But there is one person who will never reject you, and his name is Jesus Christ. He’s saying to you, “Come home.” Have you been secretly overwhelmed by that shame in your life? You can get rid of it today. The more you understand the grace of God, the more you fall in love with God and the more you want to draw closer to Jesus—because it’s almost impossible to not love somebody who loves you that much.

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Talk It Over

  • How should you respond to God’s grace when you consider that it is a gift?
  • What is the guilt or shame or bitterness in your past that kept or is keeping you from accepting God’s grace? Have you fully released it to God?
  • What does it mean to “come home” to God?

For more Daily Hope with Rick Warren, please visit rickwarren.org

OUR GIFT

Daily Inspiration for The Purpose Driven Life
 
In Daily Inspiration for The Purpose Driven Life, Pastor Rick has taken all the key verses that explain how God created each of us for five purposes and put them into an easy-to-use reference tool that will help anyone study and memorize God’s Word.




 

This devotional © 2016 by Rick Warren. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

You can also listen to Rick Warren on OnePlace.com.