Roger's Reflections: VE Day

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.  Ephesians 2:8&9

There are 92 steps going down from our house down to the River Wharfe.  They wind round, descending through our copse, and I love going up and down!  Each time I do I know I am enjoying what a previous resident must have spent hundreds of hours designing and making.  On either side of the steps are waves of different colours appearing as the weeks pass: from snow drops to daffodils to blue bells, all beautifully thought-through and planted by someone who lived here before us..  As I enjoy it, I am entering into to the work of someone else, and I am grateful. 

Commemorating VE Day today, I am being thankful for the suffering, toil, tears and labours of others, which have given our country comparative peace for 75 years.  Theirs was the trauma, and mine the peace.

Isn’t that like the Christian life?  Jesus has done the ‘hard work’.  He lived the perfect life that should have been ours.  He died for us, carrying our sin on Himself.  He was buried.  And we enter into His work as we receive forgiveness and new life.  I thank God that Jesus has done what I never could have.  If salvation seems too easy, it is because Jesus has done the work.

Not the labour of my hands

Could fulfil Your laws demands;

Could my zeal no respite know,

Could my tears for ever flow,

All for sin could not atone

Thou must save, and Thou alone.