I continue to work my way through Jerry Bridges excellent book called Transforming Grace. Bridges is a great writer with a deep love for God and it shows in his writings. Perhaps his best known book is The Pursuit of Holiness, which has sold around 1.5 million copies. Check out what he writes in chapter four of Transforming Grace.

“The fact that God deals with His children on the basis of grace without regard to merit is a staggering concept. It is opposed to almost everything we have been taught about life. We have been generally conditioned to think that if we work hard and “pay our dues” in life, we will be rewarded in proportion to our work. “You do so much, you deserve so much” is a commonly accepted principle in life.

But God’s grace does not operate on a reward for works basis. It is much better than that. God is generous beyond all measure or comparison. The Scripture says, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son”; and Paul spoke of this as God’s “indescribable gift” (John 3:16; 2 Corinthians 9:15). God’s inexpressible generosity, however, does not stop at saving us; it provides for all our needs and blessings throughout our entire lives. As Paul said in Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”

Paul used the argument of the greater to the lesser to teach us God’s generosity. He said if God gave His Son for our salvation (the greater), will He not also give us all blessings (the lesser)? No blessing we will ever receive can possibly compare with the gift of God’s Son to die for us. God demonstrated His gracious generosity to the ultimate on the cross. And Paul based the assurance that we can expect God to meet all our other needs throughout life on the fact that God has already met our greatest need.

Note that Paul said God will graciously or freely give us all things. Just as salvation is given freely to all who trust in Christ, so all blessings are given freely to us, also through faith in Christ. Just as you cannot earn your salvation but must receive it as a gift, so you cannot earn the blessings of God but must receive them also as gifts given through Christ.”