This morning I dusted off the new mountain bike that my wife bought me for my birthday. its a great present but because of the extremes of Australian weather of late I haven't had much opportunity to ride it. In one week it was consistently over 40 degrees (that's Celsius, 104F), it peaked at 47 C for my birthday (117 F). The next week it hasn't stopped raining.

So I resolved last night, no matter what the weather, I was riding my bike! You see I'm trying to regain my fitness so with good intentions and a liberal salting of guilt over my health I set out this morning to set a bench mark for improvement. Basically I set out to ride as far as I felt I could until I was too tired to return.

At the apex of my journey I felt like just giving up and taking the next shortcut home instead of pushing through the pain of the ride. Then all of a sudden a shortcut opened up to my left, it was a little side street that would cut right across the U bend of the cul-de-sac I was peddling down. It was literally Grace Street.

In the sermon on Sunday morning, the pastor likened the Christian faith to a knife edge that we walk between faith and works. He highlighted the perils of straying to far to either side as if both are cliff faces that we can fall over and hurt ourselves on. For my mind he was spot on.

I didn't take the turn down Grace Street this morning, but it did prompt my thoughts away from the pain in my legs and towards my relationship with God.

My observation of Christian living is that there are those who certainly cheapen God's grace by continuing in their sin. They see faith in Christ as a free ride to heaven as if they are on a tandem bike and Jesus is doing all the peddling. Grace is the shortcut to heaven and a means of living.

Others, and I include myself in this lot at times seem to think it's all about them. It's their effort that will get them to their destination, it's their peddling, their sweat and their muscles that move them into the Kingdom of God. It's almost like they are punishing themselves into the Kingdom.

James the brother of Jesus asked the question "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?" and concludes (rightly) that "faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead".

That's a hard thought to swallow sometimes. God's grace is a means to living faithfully. It draws us in, shows us how valuable we are in God's eyes and the lengths that God will go to in order for us to call him Father. But God's grace is not an end in itself, works are a part of faithful living, they are an outpouring of our obedience and response to God's love.

Ephesians 2:10 tell us "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

What we do for God has been planned by God to bring about His glory. Let's not rest to long or struggle to hard but find our place in Him.