Grace cannot prevail…until our lifelong certainty that someone is keeping score has run out of steam and collapsed. Grace means that God has done something for me; law means that I must do something for God.
If you do something to me and you are wrong and I am right, you can repent all you want but until I forgive you, it’s not going to do you a bit of good. It only helps when I have already forgiven you and you can enter into the restored relationship and turn again to me. Only I can decide to forgive you.
God decided to absolve people of what they should have done. He really did. It’s outrageous. He forgave you before you repented. In the gospel, repent is always repent and believe. It means turn yourself around from not trusting the forgiveness and trust it. That’s it. It doesn’t mean that you earn it by repenting.
Who is in heaven? People think it is good guys. There is nobody in heaven but forgiven sinners and there is nobody in hell except those who would not accept they were forgiven sinners. The difference is that in heaven they accepted the forgiveness, in hell they rejected it. That’s it.
The world is by no means averse to religion. In fact, it is devoted to it with a passion. It will buy any recipe for salvation as long as that formula leaves the responsibility for cooking up salvation firmly in human hands.
The assumption is that over-emphasizing grace and under-emphasizing law will result in turning grace into a license to sin. So they conclude that grace and law are like two curbs that we set up, and shoot straight down the middle so we don’t ditch the car into either extreme.
That is not the gospel.
We don’t balance grace and law. To be sure, we must understand grace and law, but we don’t attempt to live a little “under law” and a little “under grace.” You’re either under grace or you’re under law. There is no middle ground in Scripture.
“Sin shall not be your master, for you are not under law, but under grace.” (Romans 6:14)
But grace is MUCH MORE than forgiveness. We have been taught that grace is simply unmerited favor.
If grace is only “unmerited favor” then why does God give it only to the humble?
If Grace is only “unmerited favor” then why can you fall from grace?
If Grace is just “unmerited favor” then why does the Bible say that the grace of God was upon Jesus (and he was sinless)?
This word grace is translated not only means "unmerited favor," but really carries the deeper meaning of "an influence that produces a result."
Another way of saying it is grace is supernatural enablement. That puts a whole different light on things. GRACE IS GREATER than what you think. You are not just released from a penalty but from sin’s power through grace!
2 Corinthians 12:9
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
In this instance, you can see that the scripture itself defines grace as God’s power.
And here is an example of grace as your teacher:
Titus 2:11-12 says, “For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age..."
Do you see that? Grace, not Law, teaches us to say no to ungodliness.
Grace isn’t permission to be worldly. It’s your Teacher empowering you to escape anything immoral.
To sum it up, grace is:
1)God’s favor
2)God’s power
3)Your teacher
Wherever you have saw the word grace in the Bible, now go back and read it with a livelier view, knowing that grace is the empowering presence of God enabling you to be who God created you to be, and to do what God has called you to do - right where you are.
What’s amazing about grace is that it has already been bestowed to you through Jesus.
It’s a gift you should embrace NOW.
Law was not given in the expectation that we would keep it. It was given in the full knowledge that we would break it; and when we have broken it so completely that we are convinced of our utter need, then the Law has served its purpose. It has been our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that He Himself may fulfill it in us.
What does it mean to be delivered from the law? It means that I am henceforth no longer going to try to do anything to please God; for if I do, then I immediately place myself under the law. Therefore, I have alternative; I must allow Christ to fulfill the law in me. And finally, I see that this alone is what is pleasing to God (Matt. 5:17). This is deliverance from the law!
We have spoken of trying and trusting, and the difference between the two.
Believe me, it is the difference between heaven and hell.
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