The Wonder of Grace
Recently, I saw an almost throw-away comment on Facebook. It said, “Favour is grace in action.” The implication is that we, all of us, live with the constant promise of God’s grace, but that we have to somehow engage with that grace to move to the point of actually receiving it and living in favour. It’s a comment that demands an understanding of grace and how it can work.
Grace is God’s unconditional and unearned love and acceptance. Being grace-filled is how we should be. We shouldn’t need to know and feel more than this. It’s “being”, not “doing.”
The trouble is that many people, inside and outside the Church family, don’t really understand the concept of “being.” For the world outside, it’s what you do that matters, not who you are. The world looks at what we achieve and measures us by that. By that yardstick, success is based on how well we’ve done and the level of our achievement, and that’s where it can go wrong for us. Our problems start when we allow other people’s recognition of our achievements to give us a sense of significance instead of knowing who we are as God’s children and allowing that to give us our identity.
What happens is that we begin to feel good about ourselves because of other people’s opinions. Other people’s admiration feeds our ego, pride, sense of self-worth, and identity. If we allow this, then our sense of significance is based on our achievements, and this becomes what sustains us and allows us to feel good about ourselves, giving the warm feeling of being accepted. Can you see how this acceptance, based on our “doing,” becomes a constant treadmill of having to achieve to be accepted?
Does that make sense? Can you see how easy it is to fall for that way of looking for acceptance from the “world” rather than from God? And if you identify with this, how does this ungodly measure of acceptance make you feel?
So, if that’s everyday life, how would our lives look and feel if we knew for certain in our hearts who we are and Whose we are? What would living with a covering of grace really be like?
Answer: Completely different! It’s the opposite of what you’ve just been reading about! As God’s children, our starting point is to know and feel that we’re accepted. Remember what you learned on Day 9. You’ve been chosen by God! You’re part of His family! You’re carrying His DNA! That knowledge should give us confidence. We should feel good about ourselves because we can receive a daily inflow of God’s grace, His unconditional love, and Jesus’ attention.
Being sustained like this and being full of Him stirs up the desire in us to give back, to repay, to achieve, not for us – but for Him and for His glory! Now, how does that feel? That’s grace. As you step into a life of grace, of showing others His grace in you, you’ll find you’re walking in His favour, grace in action, and the need to strive for acceptance from anyone other than Father God just quietly disappears.
Reading:
This superabundant grace is already powerfully working in us, releasing within us all forms of wisdom and practical understanding. Ephesians 1:8 TPT
Also Read:
Hebrews 4:16
Prayer and Response:
Think and pray about what Brennan Manning wrote:
“Do you believe that the God of Jesus loves you beyond worthiness and unworthiness, beyond fidelity and infidelity—that He loves you in the morning sun and in the evening rain—that He loves you when your intellect denies it, your emotions refuse it, and your whole being rejects it? Do you believe that God loves without condition or reservation and loves you this moment as you are and not as you should be…?” He does, you know! He really does! (All is Grace: A Ragamuffin Memoir)
How do you respond to knowing you’re drenched in God’s love?
Can you describe the feeling well enough to be able to write it down?