Thank God!

Hello all,

First of all, I would like to personally thank all the people who take time each day to read what I write. It's humbling to know that people all over the world are viewing what I have to say. A couple of things that I need to constantly remind myself of:

1. I am writing this for God and for God alone. If no one reads these posts, that should not affect me writing it. As more and more people start reading, I may feel the urge to write for the wrong reasons. i.e. Maybe writing for myself instead of for Him.

2. I am writing this to bring all people closer to God. If what I am writing is not doing that, then I truly and sincerely apologize.

In that spirit, I ask the readers of this blog to please GENTLY remind me in my comment sections if I ever fail in either of my two objectives. e.g. I grandstand or say something really stupid that just isn't right (and you'll know it when you read it). I would greatly appreciate it.

I know that I can have a tendency to start trying to "show off" and that's what I really don't want to do. I want to try and stay humble before God.

In my life, I have received some very overwhelming graces. Things have happened that have made me very grateful for a loving God.

What is grace? Well, I've been thinking about it for the last few days and researching to make sure I was correct in my thinking.

Grace is a gratuitous gift from God. It's freely given out of love from Him and He has graced all of us (and I mean the entire world here) with everything that we have.

He's graced us with our lives.
He's graced us with our faith.
He's graced us with our families.
He's graced us with our friends.
The list goes on and on.

But above all, He's graced us with His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ who redeemed the world through His death and resurrection. As you reflect on the Old Testament, you realize that God keeps giving us chances and we keep screwing up. We screwed up in Eden. He gave us another chance with Noah. We still kept on screwing up and then He gave us Abraham and made a covenant with Him. We still screwed up and finally it got so bad that He sent His son down here to fix things because of how screwed up the world was.

He could have just as easily left us wallowing in our sins and forgotten about us or just wiped us out entirely.

What makes us so worthy of salvation?

God's love for us. He didn't have to do this. This was a gift that was freely given by Him. The chance at eternal life through His beloved Son.

So salvation is a gift from God and as all gifts, they're not earned through works as what Paul says. They're freely given by God because He loves us. Of course, we still have to love Him back.

My view of grace is like a father who tells his child that if he's good, he'll get a bicycle for Christmas, does the father buy the bicycle for the child because the little boy or girl is good? No, the father buys the bicycle because he loves his child. However, if the kid's a real brat--self centered and spoiled--you know the type. Maybe the dad won't buy the bike for him or maybe he will--that's his choice; however, that dad still loves his kid just as much as if the kid were good and what's important isn't the bicycle but rather the relationship between the father and his child.

Most importantly, as when anyone gives us a gift, we have to say thank you to Him. Not just for the gift of salvation but for all of the other graces He's given us throughout our lives. Our life, our family, our faith and of course for loving us so much.