Paul the Poke

Lots of people talk about grace, yet very few bother to define it.

What is grace? Although there are many terms that define it, the simplest way to understand what grace is, is to recognize what it isn’t.

Grace is the opposite of disgrace.

Everyone knows right away what disgrace is. It’s a state of shame.

The grace of God is something that comes to you because Christ exchanged places with you. Without Christ you are in a state of disgrace. But in Christ the grace of God is upon you.

Grace is the state of pleasing or attractive quality or endowment, a manifestation of unmerited favor, mercy, clemency, pardon.

All these are the characteristics of God that God bestows upon us because Christ took our disgrace upon Himself and our disgrace was punished, put to death and buried.

Grace is how God looks at us. Not because of our actions but because of what Christ accomplished.

When we realize the magnitude of our disgrace and the grace that is instead bestowed upon us, then we are humbled. We don’t want to be a disgrace anymore.

Grace is getting what you don’t deserve.
Mercy is not getting what you do deserve.

Keep this in mind when you encounter the word grace in the Bible.
Ephesians 1:7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.

This entry was posted on May 24, 2017 at 8:01 PM and is filed under Gospel, Phil Kulis with tags Ephesians 1, God, Grace, Jesus Christ, mercy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.