Imagine this scenario.

You’re getting ready for your 9 to 5 and about to head out the door. Unfortunately for you, the kids took thirty minutes too long brushing their teeth and getting dressed this morning, causing you to have no chance to make your breakfast and get to work on time.

Being the genius that you are, you opt to stop at the Dunkin Donuts adjacent to your building to grab a quick breakfast that you plan on scarfing down as you walk into the office. You roll up to the drive-thru window and order your favorite donut (chocolate with sprinkles), bagel, and drink. Then, you pull to the next window. Once there, you grab your wallet and attempt to hand the teenage cashier your last $10 bill when they say, “The person ahead of you paid for your order.”

Shocked, your mind starts to think, why would someone do this? Why?

Because they wanted to pay for your order.

That’s grace!

Grace, the staple of the Christian religion.

Many say what separates Christianity from all its religious counterparts is its emphasis on grace. Merriam-Webster defines grace as: “unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration or sanctification.”

Merriam-Webster hit it right on the nose!

Grace can simply be seen as what God gives us, with the only reason being because He wants to.

Just like in our scenario, when you got your order paid for, you didn't do anything to deserve a free meal. The person ahead of you paid for it because they wanted to.

Another way to think of grace would be unmerited favor. The person who paid for your order in the drive-thru favored you, but it wasn’t because of anything you did, and just as important, they didn’t favor you because of anything you will do either. This favor is unmerited. It is unearned. It is produced from the kindness and generosity of the giver.

This is how grace works with the God of the Bible.

God’s grace is unmerited. Much more than a free meal from a drive-thru restaurant, people are given the cup of living water that is Jesus Christ from the Father himself! Unlike the still-cold-in-some-places bagel from Dunkin Donuts that will soon pass through your bodily processes and cause you to hunger once more, Jesus’ life-giving water only needs you to take one sip to completely satisfy you for eternity, causing you never to thirst again! (John 4:14).

God does not withhold His grace from humanity. He freely offers salvation to anybody who would believe in Jesus Christ and, because of His love for us, freely gives us eternal life. All we have to do, like with the bag of food hanging outside the drive-thru window, is accept it!

God doesn’t give us this salvation based on any works we’ve done. God does not reward us with salvation because we are just so righteous (newsflash: we’re not). In the same way, the payer of the meal from our scenario did not pay for your meal because he believed you were going to do something good for him in the future.

God did not choose to save any person because of their perceived faithfulness or some righteousness they may acquire later in life.

Salvation is by grace.

This is an excerpt from his book, Free Grace for Latter-Day Saints: How to Share Galatians With the Mormons (forthcoming).

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Please visit Cole Morganti's website here: Tri-Grace Ministries.