God's Amazing Grace!

Grace is a word you hear quite often in Christianity. It’s found almost 150 times in the bible, depending on which version you use. Amazing Grace is even one of the most recognized hymns in the world today. Along with love, this word might be used most by Christians. Yet, even with this abundant use of the word, there are many misunderstandings in Christendom today.

Grace comes from the Greek word ‘charis’. One of the definitions that this words carries is “pleasure, acceptance”. People throughout Scripture have said to have found this acceptance with God. In a world full of sinful people, Noah found grace with God (Genesis 6:8). Moses found this same favor in Exodus 33:17. In the New Testament, Mary found favor with God to be the mother of His Son (Luke 1:30). These people and more were accepted with God because they chose to follow His commandments.

The other definition of this word is the more common one because it consists of God’s means of salvation. Twice in Ephesians 2, Paul declares, “by grace you have been saved” (v 5, 8). This is defined as an “unmerited favor”. You will hear this definition more because we are to tell other about this grace that God has bestowed on mankind that they may be saved from their sins. There is nothing that we did to earn this salvation as Paul was saying. It is unmerited in the fact that God, out of His lovingkindness nature, offered it to mankind through the death of His son Jesus. It is for all (Titus 2:11).

Now, here is where a lot of people get confused. Most Christians think that God’s grace is some divine blanket that just covers our sins. Others think that being unearned, God just gives it to certain people unconditionally. Both of these are false and not what the bible says about grace. Here are three verses that help me better understand His saving grace.

1.     “We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain” - 2 Corinthians 6:1. Paul was pleading with the church at Corinth to not receive this grace and make it worthless. First, we can see that we receive this grace which proves the two theories we had before false. How do we receive His grace? Ephesians 2:8 says “through faith”. When we believe His word, He gives us His grace. Paul declares this also in Romans 5:2. Second, we can conclude that we have the ability to make God’s grace something it is not and make it useless. This leads us to the second verse.

2.     “certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ” – Jude 4. In this verse, like the one before it, we see that it is man that has control of God’s grace. These false teachers that Jude is referring to turned God’s grace into lewdness or behaving obscenely. These men were driven by their lusts and in doing so they denied their Lord. When we wash our sins away and receive God’s grace, it does not give us a license to sin (Romans 6:1-2; Galatians 5:13). We need to be good stewards of this grace that He has given us (1 Peter 4:10) and use it to glorify Him and bring others into the fold of God. How do we do this? Let’s look at the last verse.

3.     “but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever” – 2 Peter 3:18. Here, Peter instructed us to grow in this grace. This is a lifelong process, not a one-time deal. Notice also that grace is linked with knowledge here. When we grow in grace, we are growing in the knowledge of our Lord as well. We do this by studying and meditating on His word daily (2 Timothy 2:15).

When we take a minute and hear what God says on these things, we can decipher the truth from the falsehoods. I hope these verses help you to use God’s grace wisely and walk with Him day by day.