Grace

Who doesn't love grace? We love love love grace. And how can you not? If it were not for God's grace we could not have a relationship with him!

"If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared." Psalm 130:3-4

I love grace. Without God's grace, I am screwed (to put it nicely).

But God's grace isn't only forgiveness of sins. It is forgiveness, but it is so much more.

God's grace is also the way to a holy life - a blameless life lived before God and set apart for God's purposes. Grace makes it possible to do what we are supposed to do.

"The things that are impossible with people are possible with God." Luke 18:27

This is great news, too, because most of Jesus' demands are impossible in our own strength. I could list a slew of them, but let's just start with this one: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind, and all your strength."

Yeah. I'm going to go ahead and say that without God, this is impossible.

We go wrong when we don't see grace as being BOTH the means for forgiveness and the means for holiness.

If we only see God's grace as a means for forgiveness and forget that his grace intends to perfect us, then we will continue to operate in the weakness of our flesh, continue to love things more than we love God, and live in disobedience.

But if we forget that God's grace is the means for our forgiveness and only expect it to perfect us, then when we fail to trust and love God as we ought to, we will enter the darkness of self-condemnation and fear.

As you would expect, a line from the hymn "Amazing Grace" says it much better:

"Twas Grace that taught my heart to fear and Grace, my fears relieved."

Grace teaches us to fear God (so that we can obey) and Grace relieves our fears (because we know that Jesus paid our debt on the cross).