G is for Grace

G race

Ephesians 2:5  It is by grace you have been saved.  When I come to each letter of the alphabet,  I take opportunity to give my son a lesson that will impact his life and his heart. Learning about grace is certainly one of those instances.  How do you teach a 5 year old about grace?  I find it hard to understand, myself but we went at it together.  Here was where we started;   Ephesians 2:8-10  ⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God  ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰ For we are God’s handiwork,  created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. 

I found it interesting that when I browsed through the internet on the matter, I found the question all over, “What is grace?”  It is described as a synonym to forgiveness and related to favor.  Many Christians answered the question explaining it to be a gift from God that we do not deserve but He wants us to have it.  There were many ideas of what grace is and what it means to different people. 

God is the ultimate example of grace.  He sent His son to die for our sins so that we may have eternal life.  We do not deserve heaven but we have been saved by grace.  We cannot earn our salvation, it is a gift.  God wants us to have this gift. 

I stuck to elaborating more on grace by discussing examples of people who showed grace by forgiving others who perhaps, did not deserve it.  Joseph was one of those examples.  He was full of grace as he forgave his brothers for selling him to the Egyptians.  If you take the story of Joseph, I love how his life completely parallels to Ephesians 2:8-10.  All of his works, he credited to God including the deciphering of dreams.  He did not boast of his abilities to organize and lead.  He was God’s handiwork and did such good works even saving God’s people from famine all which were prepared for him (as he was also being prepared) by God in advance.