Grace is God Reaching Down – Faith Is Man Reaching Up

I recently received an email that had the above headline as the signature of the email.  It got me thinking about how we interact with God.  Through His Grace we are saved. What an awesome gift. A gift of life and eternal salvation. Not because we deserve it but because God wants to have a relationship with us. He knows we aren’t perfect so he’s given us a way to heaven.

Colossians 1:3-6
3We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints— 5the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel 6that has come to you. All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth…..New International Version (NIV)

What does he want in return? Faith….faith that He is God, faith that you can’t do it alone and that you need to accept Him into your life…faith that you can turn your life over to Him…faith that He can provide forgiveness.

Pretty simple, right? Easy…well, no. We struggle with this. We think we’re not worthy, we think we’ve done too many bad things, we think how could anyone love me.

God loves us all and through his Grace we can have a great and fulfilling relationship with Him. He chose us and He holds us blameless.

Ephesians 1:4
4For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.

Ephesians 2:10
10For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

2 Thessalonians 2:13 
13But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you[a] to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth