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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 when we submit to His rule over our lives.

God’s law is not grace, but it is gracious. First, it leads us in this world showing us how God expects us to live in light of how He has designed everything to work. Second, it leads us to Jesus when we are convicted of our disobedience to His commands, and convinced of our inability to desire or do what He tells us. When we put our faith in Jesus, He graciously and progressively overcomes our weaknesses before the law, enabling us to love it and live it. We will obey Him imperfectly, but we can take heart in this… We know that God’s grace is working in our lives every time we willingly do what is right in God’s eyes.

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 by us keeping the law, but by Jesus keeping us.

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. All of this is by grace, which means… The only requirement for salvation is sincerely asking for it.

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.

To receive God’s grace is to be so radically changed that nothing will ever be the same again. Not your past, because your sin no longer convicts you. Not your present, because your sin no longer controls you. Not your future, because your sin no longer condemns you. When you trust in Jesus, God graciously remakes everything about who you were, who you are and who you will become. You are given a new identity in Christ, a growing similarity to Christ and a joy-filled destiny with Christ. Grace. Changes. Everything. You are not defined by who the world says you are; you are defined by who God says you are.

There’s only one reason we persevere through the trials, troubles and tragedies of life in this broken world: grace. We are given the strength, encouragement and provision we need to keep going when the going gets tough. God is always graciously working in us, working behind the scenes for us, and working all things out for the good of us. Call on Him. Count on Him. Collapse on Him. When He does not give you grace to escape problems, He will give you grace to endure them. You will make it. This is our hope in Jesus… When the time is right, God will bring our hurting to an end and give us happiness without end.

Contentment increases when your awareness of grace does. The more you recognize what God has done, is doing and will do for you as a free and undeserved gift, the more you will be grateful for what you have instead of grumble over what you do not have. To nurture this contentment, we should regularly look back at God’s faithfulness to us in Christ and look forward to God’s promises to us in Christ. Today, let us rejoice over past grace and request future grace, knowing that God has always and will always give to us what is best for us. We don’t have to look very hard to appreciate all that we are given; we just have to look.

There are certain rhythms of grace that will help us better experience grace. These habits, disciplines and practices help us remember, rejoice in, respond to, and rely on God’s favor to us in Christ. While there are many of them, there are four basic rhythms that give birth to the rest of them: Pray. Read the Bible. Respond to what God tells you. Help others do the same. This is how we better experience all that God means for us to have, as a means for us to better enjoy God Himself. The best way to dive into and delight in the fountainhead of grace is to walk daily with the Giver of grace.

While grace is available to us all the time, we do not experience its every benefit all the time. We often miss out on 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: He welcomes us to come back to Him. Therefore, let us… Acknowledge our need for His help, ask for His help, anticipate His help, accept His help, and act by His help. When we do, we can be sure of this: Jesus, our great Barrier-Remover will not push us away; He will make us a way.