Grace: More Than We Ever Imagined

This month, we’ve been exploring the subject of grace. First, we looked at how God takes the initiative in our salvation, offering forgiveness and eternal life as a gift we could never earn. Last week, we discovered that grace doesn’t stop at salvation. The same grace that saves us also teaches us to turn away from the sin that destroys us and pursue the life God intended for us.

But I wonder if we still haven’t gone far enough. What if we’ve become so accustomed to God’s goodness that we no longer recognize just how much of our lives depends on His grace?

I would suggest that every good thing we experience in life is an expression of God’s grace. Every breath we take, every relationship we enjoy, every beautiful sunset, every delicious meal, and every moment of laughter. We tend to think of these things as ordinary parts of life, but are they really?

To understand why these things are expressions of grace, we need to remember something about ourselves that we would probably rather forget.

Remembering Where We Came From

In Ephesians 2, the Apostle Paul describes our condition apart from Christ in some pretty uncomfortable terms: “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked...” (Ephesians 2:1–2 (opens BibleGateway in a new tab))

Notice that Paul doesn’t say we were struggling, confused, or simply in need of improvement. He says we were dead. Spiritually dead, separated from God because of our sin, and incapable of restoring that relationship ourselves.

But then, just a few verses later, we find some of the most beautiful words in Scripture:

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved.

Ephesians 2:4–5 (opens BibleGateway in a new tab)

Think about that. We were dead. But God made us alive. We had nothing to bring to the table, yet God gave us an entirely new reality.

And that’s something I don’t want us to miss. Grace doesn’t simply change our eternal destination. It changes how we experience the life we’ve been given today.

The Grace We Take for Granted

James 1:17 (opens BibleGateway in a new tab) tells us, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights...”

Every good gift. Not just salvation. Not just forgiveness. Every good gift.

How often do we enjoy God’s blessings without giving Him a second thought? These experiences become so routine that we rarely stop to consider their source.

And the remarkable thing is that none of these blessings is something we’ve earned. They are gifts from a God who delights in showing us His goodness.

Even in a world broken by sin, God continues to fill our lives with evidence of His goodness. But here’s the challenge: Even as believers, we can become so accustomed to these blessings that we begin to see them as expectations rather than gifts.

Yet one of the extraordinary gifts of salvation is that God’s grace opens our eyes to recognize His goodness in ways we never did before. Things we once took for granted as simply part of life begin to take on new meaning. We recognize them as gifts from a gracious God, each offering a glimpse of His character and a foretaste of the joy that awaits us in eternity.

This is part of what it means to be made alive together with Christ. The blessings themselves may not have changed, but the way we see them has. And as we learn to recognize the Giver behind every good gift, we discover a deeper appreciation for God Himself.

A Joy Too Wonderful to Take Lightly

And with that new perspective comes a deeper kind of joy, one that goes beyond simply enjoying God’s gifts to recognizing the goodness of God Himself.

One of my favorite illustrations of this comes from C. S. Lewis’s The Last Battle, the final book in The Chronicles of Narnia.

Near the end of the story, the characters enter a new Narnia, a place more beautiful, more real, and more wonderful than anything they had previously experienced. As they begin to discover this extraordinary world, Lewis writes:

“There is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious.”

I love that picture. We typically associate joy with laughter and excitement. But there’s another kind of joy, one that comes from recognizing something so wonderful that words seem inadequate.

It’s holding a newborn child and being overwhelmed by the miracle of life. It’s standing before the vastness of God’s creation and realizing how small we are. It’s reflecting on the cross of Jesus Christ and recognizing that the holy God of the universe loved us enough to rescue us when we could do nothing to rescue ourselves.

That kind of joy does more than make us happy. It humbles us. It changes our perspective. It moves us to worship.

And I believe that’s what happens when we begin to understand the full extent of God’s grace. We recognize that every good gift is a reminder of the God who loves us, and every moment of genuine joy is a small glimpse of something far greater awaiting us in eternity.

Perhaps that’s the greatest wonder of grace. God doesn’t simply rescue us from the judgment we deserve. He invites us into a relationship with Himself, allowing us to experience His goodness today while looking forward to an eternity in His presence.

And ultimately, that’s where our greatest joy is found. Not simply in the gifts we’ve been given, but in the God who gives them.