God’s Grace: The Gift that Starts It All

When we search for and seek God, we find Him. Specifically, we find His grace. This daily devotional reviews what grace is, how it convicts us and grows us to be like Him.

Devotions in the Self-Discipline Review series

All year, we’ve been looking at self-discipline. We looked at self-discipline as the operational plan for self-control because it talked about improvement.

We are reviewing everything and hopefully putting all of the building blocks together. What I am doing is going through all of the devotions for the year and pulling out the nuggets.

I am formatting this as a glossary page. If I already have one, I will combine them later.

When we search for and seek God, we run smack dab into His grace. But that can be a confusing topic.

What Is Grace?

Grace is a free and unmerited gift from Heavenly Father given through His Son, Jesus Christ that enables salvation and spiritual healing to believers by the work of the Holy Spirit.

God wants to get back to having the hands-on relationship with all of His creation. That is why His grace provided the Plan of Salvation (Does God Help Those Who Help Themselves?).
By following God and keeping His laws and commandments, we gain salvation, eternal life, God’s grace, and God’s mercy (How Did Moses Say Goodbye?).
Ever since I started pulling the research and going through it to see what I was going to write, I have had this picture in my head. The ground is the foundation. That is the fear of the Lord. We plant seeds or transplant plants onto that foundation. That is the wisdom we gain by growing in grace and knowledge of God. The plants grow through the nourishment of the rain. We grow by being obedient to God’s laws and commandments always – especially in trials (The Correlation among Fear of the Lord, Wisdom, and Obedience).
The Plan of Salvation is offered to us through God’s grace (Sins against God).
God elected us to receive the free and unmerited gift that enables salvation and spiritual healing — if we accept it and submit to Him (What Is Election?).
Grace is all about God. We cannot add to it or detract from it. That makes it all God’s choice (What Is Election?).
God did not have to extend grace to us. We are not entitled to it. Mankind disobeyed God. He doesn’t have to turn a blind eye to that fact (How the Righteousness of God Filters to Us).
We are not entitled to God’s love and forgiveness. There is nothing about us that could earn His favor. It is all about His grace (Salvation from the Cross).
God’s grace is free. We don’t have to clean up our acts before He will accept us. It isn’t grace light. This isn’t God doing the minimum so that we might be redeemed. This is God giving His only Son to die to that we might live (What Is Hope in God to a Disciple of Christ?).
We didn’t do anything to earn this election. God is giving us the gift of grace because of His mercy (Is Election Really Mercy?).
Grace gave us access to salvation. Salvation purified us (How Do We Benefit from Being God’s People?).
Because of grace, the Plan of Salvation was designed. In order to justify us, Jesus had to be the propitiation for us. This atonement accomplished in redemption. We access the gift through faith (Did Jesus or His Blood Redeem Us?).
That is the purpose of grace — that we accept the Plan of Salvation to make us spiritually alive so that we can strive to be like Christ (What Is Election?).
Through grace, we can again be pure – body, thoughts, and desires (Does God Really Forgive and Forget Sin?).
• God doesn’t do things half-heartedly. It is going to be grace, peace, and bliss (How Do Disciples Crave Righteousness).
Faith is as much of a gift as grace. Unlike grace and peace, it is argued that disciples must put forth an effort to obtain it. It is more a promise (Faith as a Virtue).
Agreeing with the covenant was an outward sign of inward grace (Is Repentance Necessary?).
God chose that the purpose of grace would be to restore us. He does that through regeneration (What Is Election?).
How many times do we feel inadequate? Unlovable? Downright worthless? We aren’t. God had already made us fit for this relationship by His grace (How Does God Adopt Us?).
Adoption comes through grace. Grace is a gift. Therefore, adoption is a gift. It has nothing to do with us — except that we have to accept it (How Does God Adopt Us?).
We are also witnesses to God’s saving grace (The Witness of the Spirits).
We are only reborn through God’s grace. But we are only reborn when we approach Him in belief and repentance. Everything after that in our conversion experience is God performing the tasks (Born for the Kingdom).
God’s grace does not preclude Him from requiring us to obey His laws and commandments. It doesn’t mean He just have to give us the good stuff and not require anything from us. God is not the God of entitlement (Will There Be a Judgment Day?).
Even as His love for us is going to last forever, God is going to have an agreement with us that will last forever. It is a covenant of grace (Comprehending Christ’s Love).
We can only accept His covenant of grace when we do so in faith (The Depth and Height of Christ’s Love).
Because grace has given us faith and justification, it has also given us hope and peace (Comprehending the Effects of Salvation).
In order to have hope, we need to be justified. In order to be justified, we have to have faith. We get faith through grace (What Is Hope in God to a Disciple of Christ?).
God isn’t stingy with His love. Because of it, we are the recipients of God’s grace (God’s Love as a Foundation of Hope).

See Alsso

Convicting Grace

Grace is a gift that we have to accept. We accept it by ABCDing (What Is Election?).
Salvation is a gift through His grace. All we have to do to accept this gift is accept the Plan of Salvation (What Else Is Spiritual Freedom?).
We are offered salvation only through grace. There is only one way for our relationships with God to be restored (Comprehending the Plan of Salvation).
Instead of our own merits, we are offered salvation through grace (Comprehending the Plan of Salvation).
We didn’t do anything to earn this privilege. We admitted our sins, believed Jesus is our Savior and Redeemer, and confessed God is sovereign Lord. We accepted His gift of salvation He made through His grace (Why Do We Doubt that God Adopts Us?).
When we step out in faith and accept Jesus as our Savior, we accept God’s gift of grace (What Was Jesus’ Mission (Part 2)).
Salvation was made possible through the gift of grace. There is only one way to salvation (Jesus as a Teacher).
What Ephesians 2: 8 says is salvation is by grace (The Way of Wisdom).
God removes our sins — completely. He removes big sins and little sins. He removes all of it, even the guilt. This occurs only through grace (The Promises of Forgiveness).
Finding God will get us access to His grace, which is more abundant than our sins (Truth in Freedom).
We become children of God only through His grace, not our worth (Paul’s Take on Children of God).
We have to open our hearts and minds to accept Jesus as our Savior to become children of God. We become children of God through His grace, regeneration and adoption (Paul’s Take on Children of God).
Not every non-believer is open to the saving grace of our Father. They may not yet have accepted that they are spiritually dead (The Promises of Forgiveness).
We are to acknowledge and appreciate all that God is. We are to recognize His majesty and accept His gifts of grace, mercy, and love (Isaiah’s Message on Our Call from God).

The ABCDs of Salvation

If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.

A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord

D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us

The Disciple’s Job Description

Grace versus Law

We are free from the law. Nowhere under the law was provision made for grace and mercy (How Do We Let the Spirit Lead?).
When Peter had enough of the debate at the Jerusalem Council, he got up (being the leader he had always been) and focused the discussion. He brought it down to what God had already decreed. I don’t think it is coincidence that Acts 15: 1-35 happens after Acts 10: 1-48. Peter’s argument contains three points — all of which are facts. God has already spoken. The law wasn’t the answer. Grace is the answer (The Council Has Spoken).
We are turning from sin to Truth. That puts us under grace rather than the law (Truth in Freedom).
It took Paul, in Romans, to really flesh out what the Plan of Salvation is and compare grace and the law. That wasn’t going to happen in an oral presentation. It needed to be written down and digested. Coupled with that is the fact that the Holy Spirit hadn’t come yet. I know, I know. Jesus was right there in front of their eyes. You would think that would be enough. Jesus knew we could only take so much at once. He was well aware that sanctification is a process (Learning about Jesus from the Holy Spirit).
It was always God’s plan to send Jesus to be our Savior and Redeemer. He was changing it to a covenant of grace (Discerning the Voice of God between the Law and Grace).
Predestination, to me, doesn’t seem like it meshes with grace. It certainly doesn’t fit with free will (What Is Election?).

Father God. Because of Your great love for us, You have showered upon us Your grace. We did nothing to deserve this gift. In fact, we did just the opposite – we disobeyed You. All You ask is that we admit that we are without You, believe Jesus paid the penalty for our sins to become our Savior and redeemer, and confess You as Sovereign Lord. You ask us to demonstrate this commitment by submitting to You. Lord, we do. Amen.

What do you think?

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