It’s not just about your past.  It’s not just about 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.  Take heart! Grace is there for the asking for both your well-being on the inside and what is happening on the outside.

By grace, God serves up an endless buffet 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.  We need not settle for morsels when we can indulge in a feast. Because we have Jesus, we can have it all.

One of the evidences that you have received God’s pardon for your sin is that you are relying on God’s power to fight against your sin.  Forgiveness and freedom are two inseparable aspects of grace.  You don’t get one without the other.  Our rate and depth of spiritual growth will vary by person and season, but one thing every genuine Christian has in common is this:  sin no longer holds the same appeal or power as it once did.  We once loved it, but we grow to hate it.  We once gave in to it, but we grow to fight against it.  Though we will not be sinless, we will sin less because of this… Our relationship with sin changes because of our relationship with Jesus.

God’s grace is always in harmony with God’s will.  That means that 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.  Know this:  God is wisely superintending the entire cosmos while intimately attending to you and me. We don’t have to understand how God is working it all out for good; we just need to trust that He is.

Sometimes God gives to us before we ask and sometimes because we ask.  While God does countless gracious things for us, in us and through 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 as He deems best because He loves us.  So… Pray often, celebrating the grace already given to you and requesting the grace that is yet to come.

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 help. But because of what Jesus did on the cross, we can have it as a gift on the basis of His grace, not our goodness.  Trust in Him and confidently ask for His help today knowing this… It’s not what you do for Him that is worthy of His help; it’s what Jesus has done for you.

It never arrives too early.  It never arrives too late.  Grace is always right on time.  God’s unmerited favor for undeserving people like you and me 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.

Every day there is a tug-of-war for control of your thoughts, feelings, motives, attitudes, words and actions, pulling you in the opposing directions of what sin entices you into and what God invites you into.   Because of grace, the war is not yours alone to fight! Look to Jesus for help and look for His help to arrive in your time of temptation as a way to leave it, the power to say “no” to it, a divine removal of it, the arrival of someone to help you through it, and / or a promise of something worth waiting for that is better than it.  Take heart! You are never helpless against temptation as long as there is a throne of grace for you to run to for help.

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 grace that is both pardon for sin and power not to sin. Therefore… We rely on His grace as we strive for holiness, and we rest in His grace when we need forgiveness.

Because the need for grace is great, and the supply of grace is even greater, we who have experienced it ourselves should extend it to others.  We do this by a “show and tell” demonstration of what God has done for us in Christ.  We show others the same kind of undeserved forgiveness and favor by letting go of the natural desire to get even with offenders and letting God produce His supernatural desire in us to be a blessing to those in our lives.  We tell others about the availability of the grace of God that has changed us and can change them as well.  Our everyday testimony for God’s grace is treating others like He treats us.

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.  We are included in it when we trust that because of His grace given to us in Christ, our sins are forgiven, and our future is secured.  We live by faith in Him and look to Him in faith for everything we need, confident that His grace will deliver it.

Grace is not cruise control.  Ours is not a set it and forget it relationship in which God does all the work, and we do none of it.  He does all of the things that only He can do and enables us to do all of the things that He purposes for us to do.  How do we respond to grace?  We. Work. Hard.  We work hard to be who God called us to be and do what God has called us to do in Christ, relying on His power and provision every step of the way.  Learn this:  Grace isn’t opposed to effort; it’s opposed to trying to earn what we’ve been freely given.    We don’t work hard to receive God’s grace; we work hard because we have already received it.

Every single good thing about who we are, what we do or what we have is the result of God’s grace.  It is all undeserved and unmerited.  Yes… We may live wisely.  We may be highly motivated. We may work hard.  But none of this originates with us because God freely supplied the ability, opportunity, voracity and community to make all these things possible. He’s been working on our behalf our entire lives!  This is good news because we do not have the fear, frustration, or futility that comes from depending on ourselves when we depend on Him. Rest in this today: Grace has gotten us this far; grace will get us all the way home.

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.

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.

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! Trust in Jesus and know this: Your chapter in the story is unfolding, and its end has already been written.  God’s love and favor are yours now and forevermore.

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. This is the reality of grace: God doesn’t help those who help themselves.  He helps those who cannot help themselves.

NOTE:  Starting tomorrow (if all goes as planned), I’m going to share 31 daily devotions about GRACE during the month of August.  What it is, what it means for us, and how we can experience it in the everyday stuff of life.  Today’s devo is a prequel to the new series and is a re-post from a few weeks ago…

No matter who you are.  No matter what you’ve done.  No matter how big your need.  There is grace for you!  God’s grace is sufficient for every situation, every location, every imperfection, and every opposition.   It. Will. Never. Run. Out. Even though there are moments when your sin, your struggles and your situation may get the best of you, if you are trusting in Jesus, it is simply impossible for you to out-sin, out-run, out-last, out-need, or out-hope God’s grace.  You will never find yourself in a place where God has not already plastered, “My grace is sufficient for you.”