Beginning to explain the Grace of God
First and foremost unless God through the Holy Spirit reveals himself to you and Gods Spirit dwells in you, all this Grace “talk” will not make much sense to you. Unless God favors you with his Grace and you experience his Grace, all this will not be very important to you. You may think it is nice or sounds good, but it will probably not matter that much to you. You can read and study the bible, examine this writing and other books; but unless God opens your eyes and reveals the truth to you by his Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:13-18)
you will probably not get that much out of it
But in your case your desire and interest in reading this book may already show a lot about you! You must have a genuine interest in God’s grace or at least a curiosity. You probably do think that God’s Grace is important. Having the right attitude is very important. For God promises, if you will seek him with all your heart, you will surely find him. We want to make this point clear; for you to seek God, ask the Holy Spirit to lead you and guide you into all the truth and only accept what He himself confirms to you in accordance with the scriptures. There are many “so called” truths out here and there are those who will tell you “this is the truth” or they may insist that “you must listen to me” because they have a knowledge of the truth or so they claim. For we know that even the devil disguises himself as an angel of light in order to try to fool all and if possible to lead astray even the elect. It is the truth that we are after and only God’s Holy Spirit leads us into all the truth. So ask for his Holy Spirit to lead and guide you into all the truth and he most certainly will do so. Now we must consider why God’s Grace so important? What do I need God’s Grace for? The picture starts to become clear when we consider who God is and who we are. God is Holy and we by nature are unholy. So how can an unholy creature approach God or have any sort of a relationship with him? Nothing unholy can be in the presence of God or is able to stand in front of God. Even in the old days people couldn’t just approach a king without an invitation. If anyone came into the king’s presence of his own, unless the king showed them favor, they would risk losing their life. Because of Adam’s disobedience and our own sins we cannot stand before God. We need to be made right in order to be in fellowship with God. Therefore we desperately need God’s Grace. It is our only hope that God has Grace on us. There is nothing in us that we can claim to deserve God’s Grace and there is also nothing we can do in order to deserve God’s Grace. It is wholly up to God to show Grace to whomever he chooses. The only scripture I found that has anything to do with us is that God gives Grace to the humble (James 4:6 and 1 Peter 5:5). But only those who receive God’s grace in the first place are able to humble themselves before God as all of us since Adam are naturally proud. We naturally have a very high opinion of ourselves….Grace to make me fear and Grace relieves my fears, Grace does both. God’s Grace shows me that I’m lost and dead in my sins and heading for eternal condemnation and only the Grace of God can save me out of this hopeless condition and only God’s Grace can save me from hell.
Grace is how God saves those who belong to him. Grace saves me from eternal condemnation which we all so rightly deserve. God’s Grace through what Jesus Christ has done makes me right with God and restores me to fellowship with him. By God’s Grace we receive the Holy Spirit and are born of God. We are saved by Grace through faith and by Grace alone, nothing else, nothing less and nothing more. It goes without saying that we don’t deserve any of it, or it wouldn’t be Grace anyway! It is absolutely and totally God’s favor. God by his Grace Initiates a relationship with us which causes a bond that is more solid than any other kind of bond can, because the Grace that God has and gives to his own is so amazing, so overwhelming, so overpowering, it changes everything. The first change in us that we may notice is that we went from being strangers to God and even enemies of God and now by his Grace our heavenly Father has adopted us to be his beloved sons and daughters through Jesus Christ our Lord. We were dead in the real sense, but now God by his Grace has made us alive. This can only be accomplished by the Grace of God. There is no other basis or grounds on which this change could be brought about. This amazing Grace causes the Grace-receiver to start depending on God and causes us to respond to God the way He wants us to and the way we were originally made to respond. By receiving Grace, I have become indebted to my Creator who is now my heavenly Father; I owe him all of me and everything! The person who gets rescued out of the burning building or rescued from drowning in the ocean owes his rescuers his life. Grace causes thankfulness in us and out of that thankfulness we respond to our heavenly Father and that is the only acceptable kind of worship. God gives Grace, we give thanks. In a very real sense, Grace restores us to our original condition as in the way it was before Adam sinned. We are restored to the same kind of relationship Adam had before he fell. Only we are “stuck” with our sinful flesh for now, for as long as we remain on this earth. After restoring us to fellowship with our Lord and Savior, Grace empowers us to live righteous and godly lives in this world and to say NO to our old nature’s demands and lusts by his Spirit. He justifies us by his Grace and begins to sanctify us. Grace changes us from one degree of glory to the next until we attain a glorified body at the resurrection of the just, which is the final Grace. God by his Grace predestined us, called us, gives us salvation, forgiveness, he justifies us and makes us righteous before our heavenly Father, sanctifies us, we become holy and finally our being glorified in Heaven which is all by his Grace. So I think you are starting to see, it is Grace from before the beginning, at our beginning and all the way to the end of our life here which is the beginning of eternal life! It is Grace all the way! God by his Grace initiates a father son/daughter relationship with his called and chosen ones. And what God initiates, he finishes, just as he has promised, seeing it through from beginning to completion. Grace is the new covenant God arranged through the sacrifice of his son Jesus Christ. Grace is the basis as God has shown so many years ago in his relationship with Abraham and David, to just mention two great examples. God has initiated a Grace-relationship with His own, giving us favor and blessings and He receives thanks in return as acceptable worship.
Augustine of Hippo said;
“The Grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ must be understood as that by which alone men are delivered from evil and without which they do absolutely no good thing, whether in thought, or will and affection, or in deed.”
But man in his foolish pride has devised all kinds of other ways to reach God’s kingdom. Man thinks he can reach God’s kingdom through religion or obtain salvation by his works. But of course none of those clever things man invents are acceptable to God. Jesus Christ is the only way and God’s Grace came to us through him. So just forget about working your way into heaven or obeying your way into heaven or obtaining your salvation by your religious duties. God’s amazing Grace is so much better and his way really works, for all those who experience it! God’s way really works, it isw the best way and the only way that works! We will try to clearly show this in this writing and make it as plain and simple as possible!