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Grace is such a pleasant word. After all, who doesn’t want grace? Who wants to be held accountable for every mistake made, every deed that should have been done but wasn’t? The truth is we all fall short of perfection, and we all know we’re in need of grace. If we were left to have to answer for all our faults, sins, and shortcomings, we know we couldn’t stay standing under such scrutiny.
Grace is unmerited favor. Grace is receiving good things we didn’t earn and not receiving punishment we did earn. Here are three kinds of grace we all need:
God’s Grace to Us
First and foremost, we are in desperate need of God’s grace. Because of the guilt we have all inherited from Adam in the Fall in the garden of Eden and the additional guilt we heap upon ourselves from our own sin, we are under God’s wrath outside of Christ.
To appreciate God’s grace, we need to recognize how holy God is and how sinful we are. Isaiah understood this when he saw a vision of the Lord in his glory (Isa. 6:1-7). He saw his own sinfulness and his need to be cleansed so he would not be destroyed by God’s utter goodness and purity. We find another such example in the Gospel of Luke when Peter witnessed the miracle of the great catch of fish and fell down before the Lord, being overwhelmed by his unworthiness to be in the presence of God (Luke 5:8).
And when we realize that there is nothing about us that is untouched by our depraved nature and how impossible it is for us to stand before God on our own merits—this is when we realize how much we need God’s grace. God must uphold his righteousness; he cannot allow sin to go unpunished. Yet, he loved the world so much that gave his only Son to die an unfathomably horrible death on a cross to be the propitiation for our sins (John 3:16; 1 John 2:2). Praise God that he is both “just and the justifier” of all who have faith in Jesus (Rom. 3:26).
Grace for Others
As God has forgiven us in Christ, he commands us to forgive others who have sinned against us:
“And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matt. 6:12).
It is part of our fallen nature to have an inward bent, to see ourselves as more righteous than we actually are and to hold others to a higher standard than we hold ourselves. As we grow in understanding of what God’s grace to us in Christ actually involves, our hearts become less hardened and more willing to give grace to others who have wronged us.
Jesus spoke of the importance of our relatively small acts of grace in his Parable of the Unforgiving Servant in Matthew 18:21-35. In this parable the servant is forgiven of paying back a vast sum of money he owes to his master only to have no mercy on a fellow servant who owes him a vastly smaller debt. The servant has no appreciation for the tremendous amount of grace shown to him by his master and selfishly holds his fellow servant fully accountable, giving him no grace whatsoever and putting him in a debtor’s prison until he can repay what is owed. The master finds out about the servant’s unforgiving heart and throws him into prison until his massive debt is fully paid. This parable teaches us that it is wrong not to show grace to others when God has forgiven us of all our guilt and trepasses in Christ.
While it can take time to process the wrongs done to us, as believers our hearts should be compelled to desire to forgive, and, as Jesus said, to forgive the person “seven times, but seventy-seven times” (Matt. 18:22). When we stubbornly refuse to forgive, when we choose to hold a grudge, we are failing to fully value how much God has forgiven us in Christ. Indeed, Jesus said the following regarding the importance of forgiving others:
“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matt. 6:14-15)
Even when we forgive others, showing them grace, past hurts can come back into our thoughts and necessitate forgiving the person again and again. This act of repeated forgiving also helps us remember God’s unmeasurable grace to us. And when we receive grace from others, the overwhelming feelings of relief, joy, and freedom from any guilt and shame we have been carrying is difficult to describe in words.
Showing grace to people, however, doesn’t mean that they deserve our immediate trust. When trust is breached in a relationship, it takes time and work to build it up again, and hopefully the trust will be even stronger. Sometimes, however, trust can never be rebuilt. Whether to continue a relationship requires discernment, prayer, and wisdom.
Grace for Ourselves
It is often the case that we have the hardest time showing grace for ourselves. We know all too well our own mistakes and shortcomings. And when it comes to finding someone to blame, the easiest person with whom to find fault is usually oneself. In such times we need to remind ourselves that God sent his Son to free us from condemnation. For us to condemn ourselves is to say that we are beyond God’s forgiveness, which is never the case for all who have new life in Christ! God’s forgiveness covers every one of a believer’s sins, and as the apostle John writes:
For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God. (1 John 3:20-21)
Beloved child of God, have confidence in your good and loving God and all he has done for you in Christ. Know that your sins are forgiven by God’s grace through faith in Christ alone. Have abundant grace for others and seek to honor your heavenly Father in all things, resting in his perfect love for you until the day you are perfected in glory to be with your Savior forevermore.
This article is adapted from “3 Kinds of Grace” in Beautiful Christian Life’s April 2024 monthly newsletter.
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