IT’S BY GRACE
I greet you once again in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Come with me as I share what is being revealed to me about the grace of God by his grace, sounds tricky doesn’t it? I’m merely saying all what I’m going to be talking about here is not from my own understanding but its because of the grace of God that I’m able to look at this subject in a different way and I know that right now it doesn’t make sense but I promise it will as I go on.
Just to give you a brief background of what this is about, I spent a lot of time looking at how my life has turned out and trying to identify what are the factors that could have contributed to me being the way I am. Of all the things I could attribute my success to, the few include my:
• Family background
• My talents, Skills, Strength & Weaknesses
• Education
• What I do for a living
I then started looking at all the above in comparison to other families and the people that I have interacted with only to realize that there is not much difference in terms of the above with them but its only by his GRACE that I am what I am today. What am I saying? That there is a number of people who are from families whose financial state is so much better than mine but they amounted to nothing, they had all the opportunities to make something of their lives but didn’t and on the other hand there are people who had the opposite circumstances and yet are prosperous today.
Apostle Paul says “for I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. 1 Corinthians 15:9
If you look back, this is where the Corinthian church was experiencing division, irregularities in the conduct of the Christians and had questions about marriage, celibacy, food offering to idols and spiritual gifts and Paul wrote a letter to them to try and address these issues and set right disorders among them.
In chapter 15:9, we find him saying that he is the least of apostles and does not deserve to be called an apostle but if you go back to the beginning of the letter in chapter 1:1 it says “Paul called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God…now I was a bit confused for a moment but as I read this letter I began to understand that Paul was actually acknowledging that without the grace of God he couldn’t do anything or all these things and thereby giving glory for his grace.
Let me take you on board with me, listen if you read this letter from the beginning, chapter 1 gives thanks to God for his grace given to the Corinthian church and when you go down to verse 26 in the same chapter he says “brothers think of what you were before you were called, not many of you were wise” now what he’s trying to tell them here is that as much as they think they are wise now, they were

To be Continued

By Bonga Mabaleka