Grace

2 Peter 1:3-4 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. ⁴Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

God has not called us to do the impossible.  He has called us to do what is possible IF we do it through Him.  That is what grace is plain and simple, it is the power of God working in us.  It is how we are saved and how we “DO” all the things we are told we must do to spend eternity with God.   

Phillippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

I have lived my self professed Christian life believing that grace was simply the unmerited favor of God; or his great mercy if you will. While this definition is absolutely true, it fails to convey the full powerful meaning God intended and the implications it has on how we are to live our lives for Christ is HUGE.  Grace is indeed part of God’s mercy that He alone decides how He distributes it out to His creation.  Romans 9:15 reminds us what God told Moses.  “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion”.    Based on the way most Christians act and most preachers teach, the unmerited favor of God has evolved to mean unlimited forgiveness of sin, both past and future.  This is absolutely not what Grace is.  The unmerited favor of God includes equipping us so we can answer His call on our life.   So what is Grace?

Grace imparts us with both the desire and the means through which we can Love God  and Obey God. 

Titus 2:11-14 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world, looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from every lawless deed , and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works. 

Grace is the power of God working IN us.  That is how we are saved.  As Paul said to the Romans ‘those who are led by the Spirit of God those are the sons of God.  If we are not led by the Spirit of God, we are attempting a works salvation. Obey God’s law we must, but we do not do it on our own strength or initiative.  It is through grace that we are saved.

God in His mercy forgives our sins but that is not what grace is directly although that is part of it.  When we turn to God with our whole heart (true repentance), the Spirit of God comes into us and washes us of our evil desires and over time we purify ourselves and fulfill God’s commandments by putting to death our sin nature.  We walk as Jesus walked, only doing what He saw the Father doing.  That is Walking in the Spirit. 

Grace is how we overcome,  it is how we are transformed from our sinful nature to a righteous Christ like nature.  Without grace, we could never be Born Again.  The old man must die and a new man must be born.  We must both have the desire and the means to follow Jesus.  It is GOD 100% of the time that does that.   Jesus told Nicodemus, that being Born Again is like the wind.  We know not from where it comes or where it goes.  It is the work of God 100% thru the Holy Spirit and is usually a process of growth and maturity in a walk with His Spirit.  We do not re-birth ourselves by willpower or our God given intelligence.  It is Him alone.

Hebrews 4:15-16 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. ¹⁶Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

The desire to obey God comes from a changed heart that God provides when we turn to Him.  The means to obey God comes from the power of the Holy Spirit and the words He speaks to us (guide us in all truth) and has written on our heart.  Grace is so much more than just unmerited favor. It is indeed a gift as none of us has done anything to deserve it nor can we do anything to initiate it.  God is in control. We cannot save ourselves in any way, fashion whatsoever.  But the truth about grace has been twisted by Satan and false teachers into doctrines that do not conform us to godliness.  

Grace is given to us only because of God’s immense Love and desire that none of us should perish. God is Holy above all and we must be Holy to spend eternity with Him.  There are no exceptions to this.  Grace enables us to become Holy, now that is true LOVE from God.  Grace enables us to come out of the world, it is indeed the source and process of our salvation. It is only by the grace of God that we are saved.

Ephesians 2:8-9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. 

Sadly, the above verse along with John 3:16 have been used to deceive the flock.  Nowhere does Paul, Jesus, any Apostle or any Prophet ever say we can keep on sinning and that we don’t need to be pure and holy to see the Lord.  Instead of teaching the truth about Grace, a majority of pastors have taught people that sin is inconsequential and that obedience is optional.  Thankfully God even included the wonderful provision of Grace called Repentance which enables us to be purified and cleansed of all sin so we can be Holy in the Lord’s presence.  Repentance is never even taught any more, why should the false teachers teach it, if indeed they believe sin doesn’t matter. 

I looked up every mention of “grace” in the New Testament and read the passage in context. It is clear that grace is the unmerited favor but to walk effectively with Jesus, we need to embrace that grace is so much more! Consider these selected passages and think about what meaning is conveyed when grace is utilized in the passage.

Luke 2:40 And the child grew and became strong, he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon Him. God favored Jesus, no doubt but he gave the Son something else to equip Him to listen, commune and obey the Father.

John 1:17 For the law was given by Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Our ability to please God, to seek, walk, love and obey Him comes through grace.

Acts 4:33 With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord and much grace was upon them all. This grace given the apostles was manifest in the power and conviction they showed in starting the early church. It wasn’t just the favor of God; it was the enabling divine power of God.

Act 11:23 When he arrived and saw the evidence of the grace of God…Barnabas saw first hand the fruit resulting from God’s grace on the people of Antioch. People were being saved in great multitudes and lives were being turned to God and away from worldly lusts through the power of God.

Rom 4:16 Therefore the promises come by faith, so that it may be by grace guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring…Many of God’s promises come with conditions, in our own strength we could never meet those conditions, but by grace, we are indeed able to do so.

Rom 5:20-21 the law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life thru Jesus Christ our Lord. God enables us in this evil world to stand firm and choose life over death and break the bondage with sin. This verse doesn’t just speak to forgiveness, it speaks of power to overcome sin, to defeat it and crucify our lives in the flesh.

Romans 11:5-6 So too at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace, and if by grace, then it is no longer by works, if it were, grace would no longer be grace. This verse brings out both the basic understanding of grace but also the deeper grasp of its enabling power. The remnant was called by God’s grace and they acted through that power to come to salvation.

1 Cor 3:10 By the grace God has given to me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder Here Paul speaks to the actions that grace enabled him to do. It wasn’t via his own doing and own initiatives, it was through the enabling power God gave him through His grace.

2 Cor 6:1  As God’s fellow workers, we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain.  We are indeed saved by Grace, but not automatically, we must actually do something with that grace as Paul made clear to the Corinthians.  The gift of God is conditional, we must choose to serve Him, we must seek to do His will not our will,  we must abide in the vine.

2 Cor 9:8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. Grace equips us to do God’s work, without it we would be incapable of following Jesus and doing His will.

2 Cor 12:9 My grace is sufficient for thee, for my power is made perfect in weakness. I believe Paul speaks to a demon here, but in any event, God told him, he was already fully equipped/enabled by his grace and further action by God was unnecessary.

1 Cor 15:10 by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Here Paul makes clear, it was not his goodness or his power that allowed him to labor successfully for God, it was God’s grace. Grace enables us to be saved; it is never of our own works.

Phil 1:7 all of you share in God’s grace with me…What a powerful message this is. Paul, an empowered Apostle tells us we have the same enabling he had to live for God and to follow his commands. We just need to fully embrace what has already been given to us.

1 Tim 1:12,14 I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to His service….The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Paul speaks to the power and the enabling he received to do God’s will by the grace that was poured out on him.

We are not powerless Christians

We have the power to defeat SIN.  It is called Grace and comes from the Holy Spirit who lives inside of us IF we are truly born again of a repentance heart.  Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil and set us free from the power of sin.  This works itself out when we are transformed into a new creation, putting to death the flesh or sinful nature and putting on the divine nature of Christ. 

God’s word says that to those he calls, he will equip to do his work.  We must gain the understanding on what grace really is or else we can easily deceived just like Eve was by the devil.  Told that she could willfully sin against God without consequence, that is the lie at the heart of the perversion of grace in the modern-day church.  We must grasp the greater truth that grace is an enabling divine power God has given to us that implants a desire to serve Him and the means to actually do it.  It is only through Him and his free and powerful gift called GRACE that we can even begin to live for Christ as He has called us.

We still have to choose life or to choose death every day.  We must follow Jesus to be saved.  The only way to do that is to be led by the Spirit of God.  That is how we stay walking with Jesus on the difficult and narrow path that leads to eternal life.  I am so thankful to God for the gift of grace without which I would not be saved.

May God Bless You Richly!