The Power of a Little Grace
(I shared these notes with some ladies at a couple of small gatherings, and was asked to print them out. I share them here, along with ten of my favorite passages on the topic. Enjoy – God’s grace be with you!)
Last year, I spent a lovely weekend away from home, at the start of the New Year and school semester. During my devotional time, I decided to study the word HOPE, which I found helpful to keep as my focus throughout the remainder of the year. As a result, I decided to choose a new word this year… and chose the word GRACE. I felt for many reasons that it would be good to learn better what the word means, and how, I thought, to better practice grace in my life and with my family. The word grace is a common word in our Christian culture. We use it regularly. In fact, I read that it is used over 150 times in the New Testament (100 of those are in Paul’s writings, and almost a quarter of those are in the letter to the Romans). I should know this word.
The problem came when I began to feel that the term grace was not as simple as I expected. As I looked up various verses in the bible containing the word grace, I found my preconceived ideas of what grace meant, just didn’t fit the sentences. I looked on the internet and found conflicting definitions or overly simplified ones. Most of those also did not quite fit the verses, so were not helpful to the confusion I was experiencing. Then I looked in the dictionary. There I found 10+ different definitions. These definitions ranged anywhere from describing beautiful, effortless movement, to a favor rendered voluntarily, to divine love and protection bestowed freely on human beings, to a prayer said before or after a meal (“say grace”), or even a title of courtesy for a duke or archbishop (“Your Grace”). The closest one to a biblical definition I saw was “an excellence or power granted by God.” I regularly use the word in my own conversations, to mean showing a kind of relaxed, gentle forgiveness – sort of like the opposite of the words “harsh”, or “strict.” Perhaps you can understand now my frustration. I couldn’t even figure out what the word meant or what it was or is….let alone how to receive it or practice it better! In the multiple definitions and cultural uses of the word, I seemed to have lost sight of its biblical meaning – or meanings. Still, I thought, the bible must have a particular meaning for this little word. And I prayed.
I share with you here a little of what I discovered while studying, that was meaningful, helpful and inspiring to me. What I have to say about grace may be something you will think is obvious, or perhaps you will think I am all wrong- and if that is the case, I hope you will simply enjoy the verses, and let the certain, glorious truth of the word speak to you. Regardless of what I say here, God’s grace is a wonderful thing, and His word is powerful. In studying grace, I wanted to answer the same four questions I looked at for my study of HOPE last year, which were: What is it {grace}? How do we get it {grace}? What does {grace} produce? And finally, how do we show {grace}?
I always thought, biblically speaking, that the term “grace” meant or stood primarily for any free, unmerited gift from God. Grace was a label for all unearned gifts from God…which really in my mind would be ALL things, or at least we would say, all nice things, since we have not merited anything from God except condemnation. After praying and studying various verses, I did see some uniqueness in the biblical uses of the word grace, which gave me a new understanding of the term. I saw the word grace was frequently used as a powerful force of or from the Holy Spirit. This force called grace has power, and a specific purpose—to reveal God’s glory to us, through faith, such that we’re changed – we’re enabled to see his glory, and equipped and enabled to share it, so others might also see God’s glory. And that gift is really the ultimate gift. After looking at grace in the bible, it seems my definition, to say it again, would be this: grace is primarily the powerful spirit of God supernaturally revealing Himself to us, enabling us to see and/or share the glory of God in a multitude of ways. It is the gift that opens the receiver’s eyes to see God. 2 Cor. 4:4 tells us that “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” Grace is the enabling we receive to see “the glory of God in the face of Christ”. Grace is power- to see and to do in God’s strength! For me, it is one thing to think of grace as the label for a nice gift, or some sort of sweet blessing, but quite another to think of grace as power – an enabling power. All the world can see a good gift, (thinking nothing of God) and still call it “grace.” It is quite another thing to be awakened to see God, and be enabled to glorify Him, in all of life – both in the good gifts, or gut wrenching trials we face, and call it “grace.” I would say from my observations from scripture, that that is a more accurate biblical definition of grace. Meanings of words can shift and change with culture. Also, words have nuances often with lots of overlapping, so I am not saying that grace is not an unmerited gift from God, it is, but so is forgiveness and mercy of any kind. What I am trying to get at and better understand is, what makes grace unique? We might say for example, that grace and mercy are similes to forgiveness, and they are, but forgiveness is a little different – mercy has a little more to do with kindness in the face of suffering, whereas forgiveness has more to do with overlooking guilt. So what sets grace aside from these two? I think from looking at so many verses describing grace, (though we could certainly call any gift from God “grace”, because all God’s gifts are free and undeserved) I think biblical grace is more particular in its purpose and power. Certainly the ability to see God’s glory –this enabling power of grace- is the greatest unmerited gift we could or do ever receive from God. I now look at that little word grace differently. It’s not just a label of a gift (interchangeable with the word, blessing, for instance), it is a gift. Grace is the enabling gift of supernatural power to see God in and through all things and to do his will. That is a work of grace in the biblical sense. And it comes freely because of Jesus, and simply, through faith or trust in him. The following are some of my favorite verses answering those 4 questions on grace that I mentioned earlier: What is grace? Where do we get grace? What does grace produce? How do we show grace?
Ten biblical passages & a few observations – on GRACE:
Ephesians 1:7-9, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ” Here grace is power, or revelation, “lavished upon us!”, enabling us to see the glory of God and His will in Christ!
Eph. 2:8, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,” Grace here is the gift…it’s the power that produces saving faith.
John 1:14-17, “And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness about him, and cried out, ‘This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me. And from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” Here, God’s glory is full of grace, and from this fullness, we have received grace, and that is why we can see his glory! So then, if we know what grace now is, how then do we get grace? At no point can we say “I did it! That was really hard, but I finally earned it!” No. God alone saves and gives the power for us to love and live for Him.
James 4:6 says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” We can’t earn grace, but we also know pride repels and humility attracts God’s grace… which I would say also, that humility is a grace—since we can’t really produce humility in and of ourselves. We can pray for it. And we can (by grace!) do what the next verse says, “submit yourselves therefore to God”…we submit, surrender, and trust him. No work… just grace – and that too, from God.
Romans 1:4b-6, “Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.” –here, grace is not just received by faith, it is AIMED at faith…. The effect of grace is faith. The purpose of grace is faith. And not just a passive faith, but an active (“obedience of faith”) faith. Grace enables obedience- it’s the fruit of faith, enabled by grace. This is not just a little, simple, wimpy-God-bless-your-nice-day word… it is power!
2 Cor. 8:1-2, “We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.” Here, grace came down and produced what?: in “a test of affliction” with “extreme poverty” grace produced “abundance of joy” in the midst of their poverty, and also it produced an overflow of generosity. Grace brought or at least accompanied, a test of affliction, as well as empowered them to withstand the test – with not just endurance, but actually “abundance of joy” and “a wealth of generosity.” How often do we call a test of poverty, “grace?”—Well maybe we would, IF it brought along with it, abundant joy and a wealth of generosity!! That is truly supernatural power. That is at least part of what grace given produces. So then, if we know what grace primarily is, a little of how it comes to us, and what it produces, we can ask, how do we show grace? What does grace look like in and through MY life?
2 Cor. 9:8, “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” – I love the word “abound!” – Grace is active here, not a label for a thing given. And I just want to rest here for a minute and appreciate the amazing free and abounding, active power of grace we have access to in Christ.
1Cor. 15:10, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.” Again, grace here is active, enabling, changing and working through Paul.
Look up on your own, Romans 12:3-21, and notice that Paul speaks by grace, and that our gifts differ according to the grace given to us and what it looks like. It’s a long list-because God is lavish and abounding in his gifts of grace, but it does come back to grace—when He calls us to each of these areas, he equips us to fulfill them. We need to keep looking for grace by praying, submitting to, and trusting Him, remembering the power of grace we have access to in Him.
I am going to end with a biblical prayer for this powerful grace to come to you, give you faith, and enable you to see and glorify Him from 2 Thes.1:11-12 which says, “To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Grace to you,
Anne
Blog Archive - Original Post March 2015