Sola gratia

I posted yesterday on grace. God works into our lives his grace in a way that counteracts our nature. Without the work of grace in our lives we would act in accordance with the sinfulness we are prone to. And that sinfulness is much darker than any of us realize. Were it not for the intervening act of God, we would not refrain from any of those acts of evil and malice that seem so foreign to us today. That sort of evil is only foreign to us because of the grace of God.

I was reminded of this truth this morning as I watched the footage from a show on the 9/11 attacks that is going to run tonight on the History Channel, 102 Minutes that Changed America (viewer beware). The contrasting images of the horror above and the valor below are truly amazing. But what is the difference between the men who flew the planes into the buildings and the men who went up into them after they had been hit? Grace.