Grace is central to the message of the gospel, but it surprising how few people really understand what it is. I include myself as the “chief of sinners” in this regard since I was a practicing and faithful Christian for 17 years before I really got what it meant. And doubtless I’ll keep saying that every year as I learn more about it.

What makes grace so important? Well, firstly, you’ve kind of nowhere in the Kingdom of God without it. And I mean nowhere in the sense that you can’t even get in the front door without it. And what’s more, anything else you try to add to grace only makes it even more impossible for you to get in. There is a scripture that tells us: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God”. (Ephesians 2:8). What does this mean? In order to fully appreciate the key concepts of grace and faith and how they interact with each other I’d like to share something that the Holy Spirit revealed to me at one point, by way of an analogy: Think of a toaster standing on a table with its chord unplugged. On its own, it is a complete appliance with the potential to take some dry bread and to turn it into a satisfying breakfast (with some condiments, of course!). It possess all the electrical and mechanical parts to toast bread, but on its own, it is also fully useless. It needs to be plugged in to a simple wall socket, so that it connect to the vast (and to it, unlimited) resource of the national grid. From there it is able to draw on a vital resource – electricity – to fulfill its function. The toaster (if it was a philosophical toaster and thought about such things) would have little concept of what this national grid might be – a vast network of power stations and high tension cables spanning in a network tens of thousands of miles across the country – but without that vast infrastructure, the toaster would simply not work. The power chord, which is analogous to faith, is the medium over which it receives its power. The power itself, analogous to grace, is what makes the toaster feel all warm and fuzzy inside and more importantly, allows it to fulfill its purpose. Put in other words, we use our faith to connect to the grace of God.

Let’s take this slightly further, because it’s absolutely vital we get this (and this is the fundamental difference between Christianity and any other kind of religion). Consider the vast potential of a nuclear power plant to power an entire city. Unlike a toaster, we are living souls and each one of us has been endowed with our own “nuclear power plant” – our soul. It is from here that world-changing inventions are devised, majestic art is conceived, weapons of mass destruction are created and unspeakable depravity is born. It is for all intents, a self-sustaining ecosystem. Except for one small problem – even with a nuclear power plant, the fuel eventually runs out. For most it takes about 75 years, but for some far less and for a few a little more. But eventually, our lights will go out. Consider now our humble sun. It is 333,000 times more massive than the earth. Canis Majoris, the largest star we’ve discovered – so far – is 1540 times as big as our sun or 512 million times bigger than the earth (see this video to get an idea of what this actually means). If we were now to compare ourselves – you and I – to Canis Majoris, we are talking a difference in mass/energy of about 1,120,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. The point I am trying to make is, that while we are like this amazing nuclear power plant, with a lot of potential, God is like Canis Majoris, slightly bigger and with somewhat more capacity than us (sorry, it’s hard not to be a little facetious at this point in the light of how some people think of themselves as “little gods” that are the masters of the universe). To take us back to the verse we started with: God’s grace is as vast as this great star and if we “plug” into that reserve of power, our lights will never go out – we have just connected to the source of eternal life. That is what it means to be saved. How much did you and I have to do with that? Not much, I’m afraid. All that is required is to exercise the faith that each one of us have been given and to receive the promise of God (yes, both the grace and the faith are gifts from God – otherwise it would leave room for someone to boast about their salvation and God’s not into allowing that): “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.“ (Ephesians 2:8). In other words, you can’t earn faith or grace and you certainly can’t go around bragging about it.

But wait, there’s more. In the very next verse it states: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” [To be completed…gotta run!]

So, how do you receive the grace of God? You take that tiny mustard seed of faith that God has given you and you let God know that you desire it by telling Him that: “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9). It really is as simple as that.