"all" saved by grace

Tuesday March 17^th Ephesians 2: 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. The “us” that is referred to in this statement of God’s love and mercy is not just the “you and me.”  The “us” is the “all” of us. One of the real tragedies we constantly have to deal with is the loss of the “all” feeling in the word us. We are constantly flipping the “We” over into a “Me.” When the young man tried to get Jesus to define who the neighbor was, Jesus told him the story of the Good Samaritan and asked who acted like a neighbor. It is not about who they are, it is about who we are. When we find ourselves defining “us” in the narrow sense, it is because our hearts can only conceive of love in a narrow sense. God is not limited by the narrowness of our prejudice. God loves all creation, all cosmos, all children. The reality is that God deals with all of God’s children with grace, and fortunate are the ones who “get” that. Our job is not to narrow the focus, but to go into all the world with the message that the kingdom is near, God’s love is near, God’s grace is near, and we, your brothers and sisters are near.  It is when we start to get the nearness and the inclusiveness of who our brothers and sisters are that we start getting it also.