GRACE

Marcela Froese, Youth Pastor

“God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” - Ephesians 2:8-10

How’s your Lent going? Mine hasn't been going the greatest… and that’s been AWESOME!

During this Lent, as a way to connect with the rest of our RockPointe family, RockPointe Youth decided to also focus our teachings around Lenten practices and readings. Each of our small groups chose a way that they would practice Lent this year, whether through daily prayers of repentance or by fasting from something in their lives.

I chose to give up TV (including YouTube, Instagram and TikTok). That part has been relatively easy. It seems to be an out of sight, out of mind situation. However, as part of our teachings, one of the things we learnt at Youth is that when we give something up for Lent, we should also make room for something new. The “something new” I decided to step into is intentionally taking the time to pray for someone new each of the 40 days of Lent. Unfortunately, this has also been an out of might, out of sight situation. How terrible!! I found it so hard to prioritize this time of prayer and I was so frustrated and disappointed in myself.

I kept thinking, “Jesus died for me and I can’t even pray for His people every day? I am not good enough”.

During the next couple weeks as I talked with my students, many of them expressed that they too had failed to remember what they were supposed to be fasting from or that they skipped a few days of their daily Bible reading. Time and time again I found myself reminding them of the truth of the Gospel. “That's okay, keep going! There is nothing you can do to earn God's love. He already loves you! His gift of salvation is just that, a gift!”

Oh… right! Even though I knew in my head the truth that I am saved by grace alone, I was not living as though I knew that truth in my heart. I was putting my worth on my own imperfect actions rather than the perfect actions of my Saviour.

My thoughts shifted from, “I am not good enough for Jesus to die for me” to, “Wow! Even though I am not good enough, I am so loved. God, you are so good!”.

As we get closer to Easter I find myself reflecting on this wonderfully humbling truth: We are not good enough. We can’t earn God’s love. Our actions will never make us worthy.

And even so…

God loves you. He gives you his love as a free gift. He died so that you could be made right with Him. His actions have given you worth.

I have to admit that this truth is still constantly blowing my mind. For some reason, I find it very intangible. “What do you mean there’s nothing I need to do to be saved?” For me, this is where the faith part comes in. I have to have faith that I have been justified and that Jesus has redeemed me. My flesh so badly wants to be an agent in my own salvation. I have had to relearn this Lent that it is not I, but Jesus Christ alone.

Through reminding my students of the Gospel this Lenten season, my Good Shepherd showed me that in my own heart there were places where the Good News had not fully set in. He so very gently reminded me that only He can save me and that is only through His free gift of grace. And to be honest, I think this is a truth that I will be processing and relearning time and time again.