A MOST HATED PHRASE IN CHRISTIAN CIRCLES — “Grace To You.” HERE’S WHY.

A MOST HATED PHRASE IN CHRISTIAN CIRCLES — “Grace To You.” HERE’S WHY.
1 Corinthians 1:3
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!
2 Corinthians 1:2
Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ!
Galatians 1:3
Grace to you, and peace from God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ,
Ephesians 1:2
Grace to you, and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ!
Philippians 1:2
Grace to you, and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Colossians 1:2
…to the saints in Colossae, and to the faithful brethren in Christ: Grace to you, and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ!
 
Of all the phrases and sayings you’ll hear in today’s Churchianity, you’ll never hear the common use of the term “Grace To You”. Why?
 
Paul used the phrase “grace” all the time. It’s all over his letters to the churches and the brethren. As shown above, he often opened his letters with the phrase “grace to you”.
I contend that you don’t hear such language in churches today because it’s too radical. It goes against everything typical churches stand for.
The big idea behind “grace” is the favor of God granted to someone who deserves the opposite. The big idea behind the core messages from typical churches is that you’d better change your life, so that you can deserve the favor of God.
In other words, they want you involved in “works” and “law”. Not grace.
From my own experience, if you say this phrase to someone (“grace to you”) it catches them quite off guard. Even brothers and sisters in Christ.
But I’m sure the idea of saying “grace to you” won’t catch on any time soon. It might ruin their gig. The gig of preaching some version of the “works” gospel.
God’s message of Grace is ultimately wrapped up in what Christ accomplished on the cross. He died for all on the cross. And his death was not for naught.
Yes, works are important to Peter, James and John. Why? Because “The Gospel Of the Circumcision” was given to them to preach to Israel. But Paul’s message of GRACE is different. It’s THE message to be delivered to the gentiles.
It’s radical. And it generally upsets those of a mindset to preach works.
To see how radically different it is, consider what happened when Paul and Peter almost got into a fistfight about the matter, when Peter came to visit the brethren at Antioch. The first two chapters of Galatians recounts “the big fight”.
To this day, Paul is more or less, hated and ignored by mainstream churches and religious leaders over this “grace” thing.
And rightly so, because IF God saves just one person who does not deserve it –AND IN FACT, DESERVES THE OPPOSITE — He must then save all who do not “deserve” it and deserve the opposite.
Otherwise, God is playing favorites on some other scale. Which would boggle the mind, if indeed God created us all, why favor some?
“Grace to you” indeed.
 If Paul used that phrase so very much, should we use it at least sometimes? After all, we’re told in II Tim 1:13 to “have a pattern of sound words”.
And what could be more “sound” than frequently greeting one another with the good news.. “grace to you.”