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Grace

                  He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. (II Timothy 1:9-10)

                “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.” ― Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers (1978)

                It’s just a side note, but there were scientists who believed that the universe is eternal. Others believed it oscillated. Einstein’s work returned science to the idea that the universe had a beginning called “The Big Bang.” As today’s passage and Dr. Jastrow’s quote point out, Scripture and theologians promoted this idea millennia before Einstein’s work led to that conclusion. But there was a time when science and Scripture disagreed, and science finally caught up with Scripture.

                But, back to the text. We were saved by grace that was given to us before time. It was part of the plan from before the “get-go.” It wasn’t because we earned it. So now that we have this grace that we didn’t earn, how often do we live as though we need to work to maintain it? Having begun by faith, shall we finish by works? How much time do we fret because we aren’t living up to the standards we believe we’re supposed to? The grace is still there, and we need to depend on it just as we did for salvation. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work on living according to the standards, but they don’t earn grace. They don’t earn righteousness. Rather, they reflect the righteousness that has been built, and is being built, in us by grace. As others have put it, the works are the effect rather than the cause.  

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