GRACE

Yes, I am taking weekends off from blogging, especially now during holiday bazaar season.  Have to manage to sell a few books.

So Grace.  It started with St. Paul, who wrote, "For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not your own doing.  It is by faith, so no one can boast."

I remember when a Lutheran pastor shared that verse with me at age 15 or 16.  It was like a light suddenly came on in my mind.  It was God's doing.  I didn't have to keep trying to be good enough to please him.  It lifted a burden from my soul, because I knew deep in my heart that I could never be good enough to earn my way to God--no matter how hard I tried.  Luther himself found this epiphany (enlightenment) also, reading St Paul's epistles 1500 years later.  And now, here we are--500 years after Luther.

I've seen a neat explanation of grace:  God's
                                                             Riches
                                                             At
                                                             Christ's
                                                             Expense

Like another contemporary song says it, "In Christ alone, my hope is found. 
                                                                  He is my strength, my all in all."