God’s Grace for the New Year

              “By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain.  On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I , but the grace of God that is with me.”

 (I Corinthians 15:10).

              Grace is not only God’s disposition to do good for us when we don’t deserve it.  It is an actual power from God that acts and makes good things happen in us and for us.

God’s grace was God’s acting in Paul to make Paul work hard:  “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”  (Philippians 2:12-13).  Grace is power from God to do good things in us and for us. 

This grace is past and it is future.  It is ever-cascading over the waterfall of the present, from the river of grace coming to us from the future, into the ever-increasing reservoir of grace in the past.

The proper response to the grace we have experienced in the past is thankfulness, and  the proper response to grace promised to us in the present and the future is faith.  We are thankful for the past grace of last year, and we are confident in the future grace for the new year!

       Happy and Healthy New Year!

   Mack