What does ‘grace’ mean?
I began using this phrase, Hope in Grace, back in the AOL days [mid 1990’s]. Since March of 2020 I have been posting various devotionals on Facebook. I want to use this page give new devos as to what God the Spirit is teaching me now and to edit the older posts and group them variously so that they can be searched more completely. I pray and hope that the grace of God will empower them to be useful to any.
And, I want my ‘first post’ to be a defense of why this simple phrase, hope in grace, is so important to me. It gets to the heart of how I have defined grace (since the AOL days).
Grace is God’s undeserved power to accomplish His purposes.
Allow me to explain:
After becoming a Christian I was told that ‘grace means unmerited favor’. Now, this is true as far as it goes but is not enough and is sufficiently vague that I’ve heard many people have serious misconceptions based on this ‘definition’.
- “Grace means God loves me no matter what.” Well, yes, as a child of God He loves you exactly as you are (sins and all) and He loves you enough not to leave you that way [which of course takes ‘grace’].
- “Grace means He fills in the gaps where I fail.” Again, yes, and He gives grace so that you can grow in holiness.
- “Grace means I can let go and let God.” I’m not even going to say ‘yes’ to this one because the very small amount of truth it contains is misguided and misses the much larger truth: Grace is opposed to earning; not effort.
I have never been satisfied with ‘grace means unmerited favor’ (as noted above, it is true as far as it goes) also because grace is usually seen as the active movement of God in accomplishing his purposes. Let’s look at the first verse most think of when they think of grace:
Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
When considering salvation, grace is the means and faith is the instrument. Grace is the living water by which we are saved, our faith is the hose God uses to bring this salvation to us. [I define faith as trusting the promises of God for you in Christ—a future devo will be devoted to defending that definition]
God saved us: He raised our spiritually dead corpse to life; He switched out our stony heart for one of flesh; He wiped away every stain of sin. All of this involved power only God can wield and quite apart from any merit on our behalf.
Now, the very next verse applies this action of grace on our behalf. Because we are saved, and without any merit of our own [grace is unmerited!], we now can live out this salvation with good works:
Ephesians 2:10 ESV “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Let’s look at another commonly examined verse on grace. The second most common verse (at least I think of) when grace comes to mind is:
Titus 2:11-12 ESV “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12 training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age”
Here the power aspect of grace is front and center. Grace brings salvation; grace trains us; grace empowers us to live as God intends for us to live.
Grace is the power of God to accomplish His purposes in and through and for us and our near ones.
Grace is the movement of God so that we become the men and women He created us to be in the likeness of His Son Jesus Christ.
Praise Jesus!
A sampling of other verses in this regard:
2 Corinthians 9:8 God’s grace abounds us to make us sufficient in His purposes.
2 Corinthians 12:9 God’s grace empowers us when we are week (probably my 3rd most thought of verse in regards to ‘grace’).
2 Timothy 2:1 God’s grace strengthens us for use in His Body.
Hebrews 4:16 God’s grace helps un in our times of need.
Hebrews 13:9 God’s grace strengthens our hearts as food does our bodies
James 4:6 God’s grace causes us to submit to God and resist pride
1 Peter 5:10 God’s grace restores, confirms, strengthens, and establishes the believer.
Grace is God’s undeserved power to accomplish His purposes.
My prayer is that this collection of devotionals, often hindered because of the intended brevity of them from discussing them more fully, will be a means of God’s grace abounding to you!
2 Corinthians 9:8 ESV “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.”
Praise Jesus!!!
Hope in Grace 