What is Grace?

"Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more."  Romans 5: 20

What, then, is the grace by which we are saved and under which we live?

Grace is G.O.D.'S FREE and UNMERITED  favor shown to guilty sinners who deserve only judgement. 

It's the love of G.O.D. shown to the unlovely.  

It is G.O.D. reaching downward to people who are in rebellion against Him.

  

 Grace stands in direct opposition to any supposed worthiness on our part. 

To say it another way: Grace and works are mutually exclusive. 

 As Paul said in Romans 11: 6, "If it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace." 

Our relationship with G.O.D. is based on either works or grace. 

There's never a works-plus-grace relationship with Him.

  

Further more, grace doesn't first rescue us from the penalty of our sins, furnish us with some new spiritual abilities, then leave us on our own to grow in spiritual maturity. 

Rather, as Paul said, "He who began a good work in you [by His grace] will [also by His grace] carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Philippians 1:6)

  

Paul asks us today, as he asked the Galatian believers, "After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to obtain your goal by human effort?" (Galatians 3:3) 

 Although the issue of circumcision was the specific problem Paul was addressing, notice that he didn't say, "Are you trying to attain your goal by circumcision?"

 He generalized his question and dealt not with the specific issue of circumcision, but with the broader problems of trying to please G.O.D. by human effort, any effort--- even good Christian activities and disciplines performed in a spirit of legalism.

***taken from a devotional from Jerry Bridges called Holiness.  It is a daily devotional.  It is short devotions, packed with good theology.  I suggest it to anyone, to take one up and follow it daily and you will be richly blessed.***