His Grace

How can someone withstand trials? Through the cancer in my eye, and now in my liver, this has been something that I have had to wrestle with in real time. From what I see in the Bible, it all comes down to our position in Christ.

“There is a danger in preaching a kind of grace that is only a reaction against legalism and gives no thought to licentiousness. Grace protects from both errors by keeping us from the despair of believing that we must merit God’s love, and from the danger of thinking that God has given us no guidance for how to love him and one another.” (Bryan Chapell) Grace...it is so misunderstood and misapplied. I have heard people ask for grace. I have heard people try to convince people that they deserve grace. I have also heard people try to teach that everyone gets the same amount and same type of grace.

2 Timothy 1:9

[Jesus] who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.


It is contradictory to think that we can ask, beg, or choose grace. That goes against the very definition of grace. We can stand before a judge and beg for mercy. Below is how the non-Christian Mirriam-WebsterDictionary.com defines grace.

  1. unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration or sanctification
  2. a virtue coming from God


Romans 11:6

But if it [salvation] is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.


1 Corinthians 15:10

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.


Is it possible for an unbeliever to experience God’s grace?


Matthew 5:45 (See also Job 12:10)

For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.


From the moment of conception to death, everyone who breaths, blinks, experiences rain and sunshine, marriage, children, etc. experiences God’s universal grace.


Luke 6: 35-36

But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.  Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.


Just like there are different kinds of faith, love, and revelation, there are different kinds of grace. Even though everyone lives under God’s universal grace, it does not mean that everyone is going to heaven. That would be universalism, and universalism deletes the purpose of the Cross. Universal grace (sunshine, oxygen, etc.) is nice to experience, but it does not bring eternal salvation.


Enemies of God are morally incapable of seeking reconciliation from God. We are rebellious in our nature and dead spiritually.


Romans 5:11

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.


Scientific Fact: Dead people don’t have any ability to do anything except stink.


Ephesians 2:1; 8-9

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.


Romans 3: 11; 23-24

None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.


God’s Amazing Grace, was perfectly fulfilled through the holy work of Jesus Christ. He did what Adam could not. God’s Amazing Grace is the only thing that can bring salvation. "Where God is at work in grace, abounding sin is conquered, hope begins, and good becomes perceptible." (C.H. Spurgeon)


All of the above is why Children of God have peace, that is beyond understanding, through the most difficult trials. I am not saying that I have not struggled at all. Sure, I have struggled, and that helps me maintain my dependence on God. He is grace. I am able to stand, because He died. I kneel in worship, because He lives.

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