The Grace of God

This week, I have been thinking a lot about one of the fundamentals of the Christian faith: the grace of God. Now, grace is something that has been twisted in our culture to mean something that it absolutely is not and for that reason alone, it is important for us to understand what grace is. We’ve all sung amazing grace and if we’re believers, we’ve all received that grace, but do we actually know what this grace is that we’re standing in?

I love the way A.W. Tozer, a brilliant man of God and one of my favorite theologians, defined grace. He said,

“Grace is the good pleasure of God that inclines Him to bestow benefits upon the undeserving. It is a self-existent principle inherent in the divine nature and appears to us as a self-caused propensity to pity the wretched, spare the guilty, welcome the outcast, and bring into favor those who were before under just disapprobation. Its use to us sinful men is to save us and to make us sit together in heavenly places to demonstrate to the ages the exceeding riches of God’s kindness to us in Christ Jesus” (Knowledge of the Holy).

A simpler definition of grace is “the unmerited favor of God.” The key word there is unmerited. Grace is the kindness of God given to those that did nothing to deserve it. In our society, that concept is something that has been understood well enough. People will say easily enough that they receive undeserved grace from God. The problem though is what happens after it’s received. Grace has erroneously been portrayed in many circles as God’s kindness in looking past sin. They have used the word grace to describe God tolerantly smiling at things rigid men and woman used to call sin. That definition of grace doesn’t line up with the God of the Bible and it never will. God has no tolerance for sin. He hates it and its destructive power so much that He sent Jesus to suffer brutally and die for it. That sacrifice was to set the repentant man or woman free from the consequences of sins that have already been committed. However, grace does not have any effect on unrepentant hearts or those that continue to sin while giving lip service to the God they think they know. John 1:14 tells us,

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

The scripture tells us that Jesus came full of grace and truth. Grace cannot be separated from God’s truth, and it will never disagree with who God is or what He said. You cannot separate God’s grace from his holiness, just as you cannot separate God’s mercy from His judgment. Mercy is only mercy because there will be judgment. If there were not judgment coming, we would have no need for mercy! Hebrews 10:16-27 says,

“For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries”

While this isn’t comfortable, per se, or something that fits with the narrative of our society, it’s true. Grace does not tolerate sin. It’s much better than that. Grace has always existed in the heart of God, but we, as believers, receive that grace through Jesus. In Exodus 34:6, thousands of years before Jesus came, God declared His character to Moses saying,

“The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”

God has always been gracious. That’s the only way that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord and David was called a man after God’s own heart. However, we now have a clearer manifestation of that grace in the face of Jesus Christ! We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus. It’s God’s goodness that saves us from sin when we accept it, by believing and confessing Jesus. That is the simplicity of the gospel. Rom. 3:22-25 says,

“For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.”

His grace is a gift that none of us can do anything to deserve. It’s the goodness of a loving God that we could never be worthy of receiving. Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us,

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

The most important thing to understand here though is that when you receive grace, when you really receive it, you receive Jesus, and no human heart can receive Jesus and stay the same. Titus 2:11-14 says,

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.”

We see in that Scripture that the grace of God doesn’t just bring salvation, but trains us to live holy! That’s the goodness of God. When you truly receive salvation by faith and stand in the grace of God, you can’t stay the same. Grace empowers us to live like Jesus, to walk free of sin and in the power of God. It enables us to overcome our flesh, darkness, and the enemy. Grace is receiving the fullness of God’s goodness, knowing you did nothing to deserve it. It’s receiving the gift of God’s Son, the unmerited invitation to be treated as if you’d lived just like Jesus did. The grace of God allows the King of heaven and earth to look at us and see the blood of the Lamb. We could never deserve His grace, but He delights to give it to us. I encourage you today to receive freely, drink deeply, and walk firmly in the grace of God, demonstrated most purely and beautifully in the nail scarred hands of Jesus Christ. He loves us; He’s for us; and His grace is more than enough!

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