Stand in Grace: Romans 5:2
Once you enter the Christian life how do you live the Christian life until you exit? There’s an entry and there’s an exit, but what happens in between?
Romans 5:2 gives us the answer, “Through him we have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.” (ESV)
How do we enter? Through Him, Him being Christ we have obtained access by faith! We get in the Christian walk by faith in Christ. We trust what Jesus paid at the cross and come to Him in faith and enter the Christian life.
On the other end we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God! There’s tremendous hope in the glory of God on the exit from the Christian life. We know when we’re absent from the body we’re at home with the Lord. We know when the Lord comes back, he will raise the ones who have passed away and take them to be with Him and then those who are alive will go with Him too! Whether by physical death or the return of Jesus, we’re going to be with Him in heavenly glory and share His glory in Heaven forever!
We enter by faith and make our exit in the hope of the glory of God in Heavenly glory! When you see the word “hope” in the New Testament think “assurance.” We enter by faith and exit in the assurance of sharing in the glory of God! What do we do in between entry and exit?
Faith puts us into the grace of God in which we stand! Between entry and exit we stand in grace! You live the Christian life by standing in God’s grace, that’s
His favor you don’t deserve He lavishes on you in abundance!
To stand in His grace means you live your life standing in His unmerited favor which grants you power that’s without limit for whatever you might face in life! Have you noticed life is unfair and filled with difficulty! It is!
You know what Winston Churchill said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts.” Life is filled with success and failure! At least it has been filled with both for the last 71 ½ years I am aware of!
Life can be tough, and it takes God-capacity from grace to stand in the midst of the tough times to get through to the next good time! If you think life is supposed to be smooth and not have bumps and potholes along the way, you’re going to be sorely disappointed!
One of the tough times for me lately wasn’t working for 3 ½ months during the pandemic! I got tired of reading and got tired of old western movies. I got my first official job in May of 1964 and have gone to work most days since with a couple of 5 week breaks for heart and brain surgery in 2014. I prayed more and learned to stand in the grace of God and got through it!
The grace of God empowers you for the tough times! Walking with the Lord is no guarantee you won’t have hard times! In fact, it probably guarantees some extra hard times brought on by a strong commitment to principle! The other thing walking with the Lord will guarantee is God’s grace to tap into His power to enable a strong stand in tough times! Tough times don’t last! If you stand in them and against them you will outlast them! Standing in the grace of God will get you through them. This is how the Christian life is lived, and it’s how it’s supposed to be lived!
In Army basic training we were rousted out of bed in our underwear at about2 a.m. one time. We had to pick up our footlocker and fall out for what they called “the manual of footlockers.” The footlocker was a box we had our underwear and other clothing and equipment in. Everything was arranged inside to pass inspection. These footlockers probably weighed around 50 pounds.
Suddenly, we found ourselves outside in skivvies freezing to death with the drill sergeant commanding things like, “right shoulder footlocker!” They treated the footlocker like we were drilling with our weapon, which is what the rifle was called.
“Right shoulder footlocker,” and we put it like a weapon and held it with one hand on our right shoulder. Next, “left shoulder footlocker,” and we shifted to the left shoulder and used the other hand to hold the footlocker.
Finally, I heard “overhead footlocker!” He kept yelling, “overhead footlocker,” for several minutes. He added threats about not dropping the footlocker and not falling over! One guy next too me fell over and dropped his footlocker. They had him low crawling in his skivvies in the wet grass while screaming and yelling at him with more threats.
I stood without falling with my footlocker over my head until they commanded us to go back to bed! Life can be like the manual of footlockers. Sometimes you’re required to find the strength to stand! It takes the power of grace to stand!
The call between coming in by faith and being assured of the glory of God on the other end is we’re called to stand in grace!