grace

"for it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God not by works, so that no one can boast" ephesians 2:8-9

the other night as i was coaching my basketball team, we stopped practice for a quick time of exploring this concept. and as i explained this concept of grace to these young men and women, i compared God's offer of grace to us as a gift. one of my players asked "you mean like Christmas?" "yes" i said. "God is offering His gift of salvation through His son Jesus Christ to every man and woman and child on this planet like a Christmas gift" "who would say no to Christmas?" he asked. "i don't know" i answered. but people do. he shook his head in disbelief even as i continued. and later it occurred to me the second part of this transaction. "through faith" requires that we actually believe in the gift and the giver. and in the necessity of the gift as a means to salvation. why would anyone accept a gift from something they didn't believe in for something they didn't even think they needed?
then today watching my youngest son play basketball i watched as time and again the players on his team stepped out of bounds, stopped and started, carried the ball and generally fouled each other, all without call. at this level if they called everything the game would probably stop every 30 seconds or so. in giving them this freedom the referees are trying to allow them to understand the game as a flow without calling each violation. it's grace. i guess if we all believed someone had already made rules for our game down here on planet earth, we might think about it all a little differently. the only difference according to this passage is, it doesn't matter what we do, none of it in the end will end up saving us. "this not from ourselves" means God has already done the work through His son Jesus, so that He alone may boast. faith gives redemption to make us holy in our weakness. through grace.