Why is the grace of God in Christ so hard for us to understand and accept? Is it maybe because we are so accustomed to earning everything by ourselves (from grades in school to paychecks at work, etc.)? Sometimes we get it and sometimes it’s like trying to learn a foreign language. The bible is crystal clear on the teaching of grace. Maybe we need to spend more time studying our bibles and less time reasoning with worldly wisdom when it comes to our salvation.

Mandisa’s lyrics are really enlightening in the song entitled Back to You. Her chorus is: “This shouldn’t be complicated – This isn’t that hard to see – It’s not about what I do for you – It’s what you’ve done for me”. The first time I listened to Mandisa’s song Back to You I thought it was speaking about repenting and coming back to God; however, the song is about giving our life back to Jesus since He has given Himself to us. She is deeply moved by Jesus’ love as He gave His life for her; consequently, she wants to give her life back to Jesus to be used by Him to bring glory to the Father.

The apostle Paul writes, ^“For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit 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 toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.  (I Corinthians 15:9-10). At one period of time Paul lived for Paul and that got him into deep trouble. We do the same thing according to Romans 3:23: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. When we come to know Jesus and His saving love on the cross we want to live for Him – we feel compelled to live for Him because His love captivates our hearts.

Read II Corinthians 5:14-21. Then listen to Back to You by Mandisa. Then give your life to Jesus like never before.

2 Corinthians 5:14-21

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.