The Amazing Thing About Grace

I was cleaning out my room the other day, and I discovered a book that I had not read in a very  long time. This book was Philip Yancey’s What’s So Amazing About Grace?  This book has a history: A cell group I once belonged to (that is, before it disbanded) used this book as the basis of our studies. In fact, the copy I own of Yancey’s book was a study guide to it. Either way, we were unable to complete our study of the topic of Grace, due to our group splitting off.
Anyways, the re-discovery of this book got me thinking. What is  so amazing about grace? And at work one day, the answer came to me. Ponder this passage of scripture for a while…

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”
                            – 1 Corinthians 1:18-19

One of the central keys to Christianity is the doctrine of Grace.  Jesus came as the once-and-for-all sacrifice for the forgiveness of Sin, which of course was His saving act by His blood, on the Cross. One thing to bear in mind about salvation by Grace is that it stands in stark contrast to salvation by Works.  And here’s where I got thinking in overdrive: when we do wrong against another person, our natural tendency is to “work” off the transgression we caused to him or her. A sense of guilt accompanies an act of wrong, and we naturally try to work off our guilt, in the hope that we have done enough in order to satisfy the person we’ve wronged. Now, almost every major religion (Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, et al.) stresses that it is by our good works that we are able to be made perfect. And you would expect an all-powerful God – creator of all things - to look at us humans, and look at those who have done the greatest. Yet the very same all-powerful Creator God does the exact opposite  to the common sense and logic of human thinking. In fact, the message of Grace can be summed up this way:
“God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
                            – Romans 5:8