Racing For Grace?

But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD. Genesis 6:8

Man was evil in his heart continually. That means Noah was perfect and God saved him out of all the others because of that righteous perfection, right? We may have thought that way without realizing it. But the Lord's word says that Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD. Wait, the word does say that Noah was a just man, that he walked with God. Does that mean the man saved himself from the deluge? Sorry, the word says that Noah found grace first, that means it is all God's work in him.

The flesh and its desire to save itself, and thus take the glory from God, wants Noah to be righteous in his own efforts, sanctified by his religious observance, and even obedient to the law in his own strict ways and training - something, anything that we as creatures of the flesh can achieve on our own without God. The flesh does not want to believe that Noah was just the same as those other men that God destroyed in the flood. The flesh dearly wants to know that Noah had something special to offer to God, something Noah achieved all on his own. Noah the superman, Noah the special one, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

We are not racing each other for the last seat in Heaven. Like Noah we brought nothing special to the Lord's table and we have nothing to offer up to Him that would make us the guest of honor at His banquet. We found grace in the eyes of the Lord at His discretion; He chose us before time began, and our Lord did all the work of saving us from the coming destruction. To God be the glory, because grace certainly didn't come from me or you.

Saved by grace in Christ the Lord,
Bucky