Recently, I have been thinking a lot about Grace. Not the person, though I'm sure she's nice - but the type of Grace that only God can give away. I believe this has to do some with a section about Grace in Mark Driscoll's book "Religion Saves: and Nine Other Misconceptions", but mostly to do with God allowing me to focus on such a deep issue and to be overwhelmed (finally) with how little I actually know about it... Not to mention how sinfully little I have cared to think about it.
Two thoughts I have had recently, and I'll expound more on them once I get my thoughts together.
1. Due to original sin, God would have been perfectly justified sending all of us humans to hell the moment we were conceived. We are all stained by sin to the point that we are disgusting even from the womb.
2. God never mentions giving sinful people a "new heart" or "new mind" so they can keep on sinning. Instead, he "hardens" their heart - he gives them up to their "old person". This means that all God has to do is let these people go deeper and deeper into their own already sinful desires. God, in order to save people, gives them a "new heart" or the like (new birth, new spirit, etc...), meaning they no longer have the same desires, but new ones - the kind of desires that lead to loving God, which the people with hardened hearts (Ephesians 4:18) do not have and cannot obtain alone (ie. without God giving them a "new" heart, a "new" birth, etc...). The sinful person has a hardened heart, which does not love God, which prevents them from believing they need God for salvation, and thus they never ask Him.
Again, more on this later, but those two thoughts have been on the forefront of my mind as of late.
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