Good morning:
“No, not that one.” The mechanic said to his new assistant. “I need the torque wrench, not the socket wrench. This is precision work I’m doing here.” The assistant didn’t know the difference between the two types of wrenches yet and so had handed the master mechanic the wrong tool. The mechanic knew he needed the right tool for the right job. Having the right tool for the right job is important. Using a hammer on a screw will create a large unsightly hole without fastening anything together. Using a pair of crazy scissors on silk will leave so many ragged ends you might as well have ripped the fabric instead of cutting it. There’s no doubt about it, having the right tool for the right job is a necessity.
God chose the right tool to deliver His grace to you. God uses His gift of faith in your heart to cause you to hold onto His promise of grace. God sees faith as the perfect conduit to run between Himself and you. Through the pipeline of faith, God delivers His grace into your heart. This faith seals you into the kingdom of heaven as Paul says in Ephesians 1:13 “In Him [Jesus] you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,” You are saved completely through the atoning work of Jesus and are sealed into that salvation by faith, which God granted you during baptism or through hearing His word.
God sees faith in Him as the perfect and necessary complement to the grace he has for you. Both are gifts from Him, but they differ in who they affect. God’s grace toward you causes Him to place His anger toward your sin on His son in order to shower you in undeserved love. Your faith in God causes you to look on God as merciful and loving instead of only as justly condemning. Essentially, the gift of faith lets the believer make God’s grace toward mankind his own. Faith is what applies the grace of God personally to oneself. Thank God for the gift of faith.
In Christ, Pastor Naumann
