When we receive God’s grace, every sin we have committed, are committing and will commit are all forgiven. Fully. Freely. Forever. That doesn’t mean we can knowingly and willfully continue sinning with no remorse or repentance. True grace is not “All is forgiven, now you can freely wallow in sin.” True grace is, “All is forgiven, now you can firmly withstand sin.” Jesus did not pick us up just so we would run back to the same thing that knocked us down. He supplies both pardon for sin and power not to sin. So… We rely on His grace as we strive for holiness, and we rest in His grace when we need forgiveness.
He Rules For Our Good As We Submit To His Rule
God’s grace will call us to submit to God’s authority. From the moment we put our faith in Jesus, we will begin a lifelong journey where we yield more and more control to Him as we trust Him more fully in more areas of our lives. For genuine believers, there will be an immediate, increasing, imperfect reception of the new life of joyful obedience and rejection of the old life of sinful disobedience. We will stand by His grace when we get it right and fall into His grace when we get it wrong. Whatever happens today, let us strive to gladly obey Jesus knowing this… He rules for our good as we submit to His rule over our lives.
Grace Always Fits Two Things
God’s grace is always in harmony with God’s will. That means although He will do for us what is good for us, it will often be in ways that are different than what we expected, desired or requested. Grace always fit two things: what we need and what God wants. It will serve both our particulars and His purposes, ensuring that our needs are cared for and His plans are carried out. God is wisely superintending the entire cosmos while intimately attending to you and me. Let us praise Him for Who He is and for what He does! We don’t have to understand how God is working it all out for good; we just need to trust that He is.
Grace Is Always Right On Time
It never arrives too early. It never arrives too late. Grace is always right on time. God’s unmerited favor for undeserving people is both customized to fit what we need and calculated to arrive when we need it. Neither the size of the trial nor the strength of the temptation will ever be a match for the well-timed help that God sends in the many moments that are too much for us to handle alone. When you feel like giving in to temptation or giving up in a trial, that’s when you can know for certain that grace is there. In your time of need, God will ensure that you have what you need. Our timing is rarely perfect; His always is.
His Help
While grace is available to us all the time, we do not experience its every benefit all the time. We often miss blessings that could be ours. Why? Because of sin-created barriers. We don’t think we need God’s help, don’t remember to ask for God’s help, don’t believe God will send help, and/or refuse the help that He sends. But here is good news: Jesus is our great Barrier-Remover! Therefore, let us… Acknowledge our need for His help, ask for His help, anticipate His help, accept His help, act by His help, and adore Him for His help. When we do, we can be sure of this: Jesus will not push us away; He will make us a way.
Confidently Asking God For Help
There are two errors we often make when we consider asking Jesus for help. We either feel confident that we can ask Him for help because we’ve been “good,” or we feel hesitant to ask Him for help because we’ve been “bad.” Both of those ideas twist God’s kingdom into a meritocracy in which we submit our requests (or not) based on our deeds. The truth is we don’t deserve God’s gracious help. But, because of Jesus, we can have it as a gift on the basis of His work, not ours. You can confidently ask God for His help today because… It’s not what you do for Him that is worthy of His help; it’s what Jesus has done for you.
Before We Ask, Because We Ask
Sometimes God gives to us before we ask and sometimes because we ask. While God does countless gracious things for us without us requesting them or even realizing them, there are some things He does only as a response to us humbly asking Him. To be sure, we don’t pray to get what we want to build our own kingdoms; we pray to get what we need to live for His. Still, God loves to be seen as generous, loves for us to appeal to His generosity, and loves to give generously to us because He loves us. So, ask Him. Pray often, celebrating the grace already given to you and requesting the grace that is yet to come.
Asking For More Grace
You are not bothering God when you ask Him for more grace. He isn’t too busy or too disinterested. He doesn’t need to put something more important on hold to help you. Listen… There is no sin so big that God won’t forgive it and no sin so small that God will ignore it. There is no stronghold so powerful that God can’t break it and no stronghold so flimsy that God wants you to get free on your own. There is no problem so significant that God won’t handle it and no problem so petty that God doesn’t care about it. He does trillions of things in running the universe. One of His favorites is hearing from and helping you.
His Grace Is Always Enough
Faith in God’s future grace destroys fear, frustration, anxiety, worry, jealousy, envy, vanity, idolatry, insecurity, doubt, selfishness and worldliness in the present. When we trust in all that God has promised to do for us, give to us and be for us, it rids us of what is robbing us of real joy in Jesus. Belief that God knows best, does what is best and will give us what is best every moment for the rest of our lives sustains us when we have to give up something we want or go through something we don’t want. No matter what happens today, let us be sure to praise God and let us be sure of this: His grace is always enough.
Grace Will Always Come Alongside To Help
It’s not just about your past and your future. It’s also about your present. Our sinful separation from God is behind us, and our face-to-face fellowship with Him is ahead of us. In between the two is the nowness of everyday life. And grace is there. The way that God works in our lives is very practical for the right here, right now moments of our lives. You will not face a single situation today, good or bad, self-induced or involuntary, hard or easy, quick or lasting, anticipated or unexpected, that God has not provided for. No matter what is happening on the inside or the outside, grace will always come alongside to help.
The Giving And Receiving Sides Of Grace
Grace has two sides, a giving side and a receiving side. God gives. We receive. How do we receive God’s grace? By faith. Faith is the only appropriate response to the grace of God for it is the only response that appropriates the grace of God. We must believe in order to receive. The gracious pardon, power and provision that God freely offers us must be received by faith in order for us to personally experience it. It is only ours by trusting in Jesus. By grace, through faith, our sins are forgiven and our future is secured. Day by day, we look to Jesus in faith for all that we need, confident that His grace will deliver it.
Salvation Is Received, Not Achieved
Salvation is received, not achieved. We cannot do anything to deserve it or earn it, not even acts of obedience or righteousness. God does it all… The Father wills it. The Son secures it. The Holy Spirit administers it. What a gift! What a God! He doesn’t help those who help themselves; He helps those who cannot help themselves. From start to finish, it’s all by grace… Chosen. Called. Converted. Completed. Someday every genuine believer will be fully and forever delivered from the presence of sin into the presence of God. Not because we are able to keep the law, but because Jesus is able to keep us.
Rescued From Something For Something
What does it mean to be “saved” by grace? It means to be rescued from something for something. From sin, for righteousness. From Satan, for God. From punishment, for reward. From death, for life. From hell, for heaven. From wrath, for joy. From brokenness, for glory. We must be rescued because we are incapable of reversing the curse on mankind caused by our sin. God is undoing all of the horrible things that sin has done and replacing them all with good things, beautiful things, joyful things, perfect things, eternal things. This is all by grace, which means…The only requirement for salvation is receiving it by faith.
His Perfect Life For Our Imperfect Ones
If you think you can simply be a “good person” to get into heaven when you die, then you have grossly underestimated what God requires for entrance. Something we need to understand is this: our standards may be low enough that we can meet them, but God’s are high enough that we never will. As sinners, the best we can do does not measure up. The good news is this: We don’t have to because Jesus already did on behalf of all who put their trust in Him. Jesus lived for us. Jesus died for us. Someday we will be accepted into heaven by grace through faith in this: He exchanged His perfect life for our imperfect ones.
Someone Had To Pay
Nothing is free. When a gift is received, someone had to first secure it. Someone had to cover the cost. Someone had to pay. You and I are grace recipients who are gifted divine blessings. These are… Gifts, not wages. Free to us, not earned by us. Heaven-sent, not earth-generated. But let’s never, no never, lose sight of this truth: they came at a staggeringly high cost. Someone had to pay, and that Someone was Jesus. Except for what He did on the cross, sinners like you and me would get nothing but judgment. Instead, we get every good thing God has purposed for us. We get it all because Jesus paid for it all.
God Helps Those Who Cannot Help Themselves
Nothing and everything. If you don’t understand both of these aspects of grace, you don’t understand grace. As sinful people, we can do nothing to meet God’s standards, avoid God’s wrath, deserve God’s blessing, earn God’s forgiveness, or enter God’s heaven. But God did everything by sending Jesus to forgive us, free us and favor us so we can enjoy a rich and restored relationship with Him forever. We don’t buy from, bargain with or bribe God for what He does for us; we receive it freely by faith. The reality of grace is… God doesn’t help those who help themselves. He helps those who cannot help themselves.
Grace Has The Final Word
The biblical story is about a God of grace sending His Son to people in need of grace to rescue them from sin by grace so we can be welcomed into His family to live by grace and serve as ambassadors who tell others about His grace so they might also experience His grace. This beautiful narrative is one in which God repeatedly reaches down to and out for an undeserving people who repeatedly push against and away from Him. Where sin abounds, grace abounds even more! When you trust in Jesus, you can know this: Your chapter in the story is unfolding, and its end has already been written. Grace has the final word.
Grace Is All Around Us
We know grace is God’s “unmerited forgiveness, freedom and favor” toward us, but that’s very generalized. What does it specifically look like in everyday life? It looks like: forgiveness during failures, peace during storms, hope during trials, comfort during heartaches, joy during suffering, guidance during uncertainty, rest during busyness, strength during temptation, blessing during good times, help during bad times, and so much more. But even that is not as pin-point accurate as grace really is, for it shows up in countless minutiae within each of those categories. Look and see… Grace is all around us.
It’s A Buffet, Not A Bite
By grace, God serves up an endless feast of soul-nourishing, soul-delighting blessings for those who trust in Jesus. This includes: forgiveness, friendship, freedom, wisdom, power, peace, purpose, joy, hope, security, rest, justice, thankfulness, assurance, deliverance, guidance, significance, endurance, comfort, companionship, care, courage, transformation, satisfaction, love and life. And this is not a complete list! The countless implications and applications of the benefits that are ours by grace are staggering and extend from now until eternity. It’s a buffet, not a bite. In Jesus, we have the life we’ve always wanted.
Grace Is
Grace is the forgiveness, freedom and favor of God given freely to us. It is forgiveness… God is just and cannot simply ignore our sin; He is also the Justifier Who sent Jesus to be punished in our place in order to pardon us. It is freedom… Sin’s controlling, enslaving influence in us has been broken, and we are empowered not to sin as we live by God’s indwelling Spirit. It is favor … Every good thing in our lives is a gift from heaven that would not be ours apart from Him. This grace is unlimited and unending, so even as we stumble in our faith, there will always be… More forgiveness. More freedom. More favor.
