Grace from beginning to end

There is a much-loved hymn that communicates some of the themes we’ve been exploring the last couple of Sundays in our series on Genesis:

The God of Abraham praise, whose all sufficient grace
shall guide me all my given days, in all my ways…
He by himself hath sworn, I on his oath depend.

One of the main lessons we’ve been learning from Abraham’s journeys is that the life of faith is not a straight line. It would be great if we only experienced steady progress in holiness after answering the Lord’s call to follow him. However, as we all know full well, following Jesus has its ups and downs, and sometimes we take a couple of steps back. The beautiful thing is that God uses these setbacks to remind us that our salvation is by grace from beginning to end. That is why we don’t sing, "Abraham praise," but "The God of Abraham praise." None of us can boast in our moral accomplishments. We can only praise God for remaining faithful to his promises despite our shortcomings.

God is so gracious that he doesn’t just give us wonderful promises: he also confirms and seals these promises unto our hearts through his sacraments. On Sunday Pastor Steve will be opening the word for us as we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Just as the Lord confirmed his promises to Abraham, He will confirm his promises to us through bread and wine. In fact, the Lord will confirm to us the very promises he made to Abraham, because in Jesus, all of God’s promises are "yes and amen" (2 Cor 1:20).

Daniel Eguiluz
Church Plant Coordinator for Discipleship and Admininstration