The words are like an exclamation point to what has been a percolating undercurrent for me over the past several months. As I’ve been taking my high school class through Galatians . . . as I’ve been renewing my thinking on the gospel . . . as I’ve been chewing on the warning about “other gospels which really aren’t good news at all” . . . as I’ve experienced a growing burden over the propensity to take what was begun by the Spirit and try to perfect it in the flesh . . . “by grace alone” has been the “song stuck in my head.” And so, as I read, Paul’s sermon in Acts 13, it probably isn’t surprising that these six words jumped off the page . . .

. . . continue in the grace of God.   (Acts 13:43b ESV)

Paul and Barnabas have just started their “Proclaim the Word of God Tour” . . . dates are set . . . t-shirts are made . . . called and set apart by the Spirit, Paul and Barnabas hit the road (and the seas). Their venues? Synagogues. Their message? “God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as He promised” (13:23) . . . “to us has been sent the message of this salvation” (13:26) . . . “we bring you good news that what God promised to the fathers, this He has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus [from the dead]” (13:32) . . . “through this Man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by Him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses” (13:38-39).

And in Antioch in Pisidia there are those who respond to the message. They are those who realize that trying to earn favor with God by keeping the law of Moses was nothing more than bondage to a code of conduct they were simply incapable of keeping. They are those who, in hearing the word proclaimed concerning Jesus, are stirred by the message of a freedom based solely on the promises of God. They are drawn to the declaration that salvation is sourced in Him who was raised from the dead. That it is through His sacrificial death on the cross alone that forgiveness of sins is possible. That it is through His risen life alone that power is available, for all who believe, to live above the bondage of sin and the flesh.

And it is to those who believe unto salvation . . . to those who respond to the truth in faith . . . to those who are regenerated by the Spirit of God . . . that Paul urges, “Continue in the grace of God.”

Continue . . . remain . . . tarry over . . . abide in . . . stay with . . . the grace of God.

How prone I am to shift to thinking that, in order to please God, it’s about my abilities . . . my disciplines . . . and my efforts. How I need, instead, to stay with the grace which “hath brought me safe thus far” believing that “grace will bring me home.”

I’ve been like a broken record with the kids in my class . . . the gospel of God’s grace “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16) . . . it is the power for all aspects of salvation! That’s salvation past, the deliverance from the penalty of sin . . . that’s salvation present, the deliverance from the power of sin . . . that’s salvation future, the deliverance from the presence of sin. Justification . . . sanctification . . . glorification . . . all by the grace of God through the power of the risen life of Christ. Stay with it!

Mine is to live by faith . . . believing the work He begun in me He will complete in me (Php. 1:6). Mine is to swim deep in the grace of God who, through His Spirit in me, works in me, “both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Php. 2:13). His will . . . His work . . . His empowering grace.

Stay with it!