The Places Grace Empowers Us

Christians live every day by the grace of God.

We receive forgiveness according to the riches of divine grace, and grace drives our sanctification. Paul tells us, “The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives” (Titus 2:11–12).

This doesn’t happen overnight—we “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 3:18). Grace transforms our desires, motivations, and behavior.

Grace is the Basis

In fact, God’s grace grounds and empowers everything in the Christian life. Grace is the basis for:

Our Christian identity: “By the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Cor. 15:10).
Our standing before God: “. . . this grace in which we stand” (Rom. 5:2).
Our behavior: “We behaved in the world . . . by the grace of God” (2 Cor. 1:12).
Our living: Those who receive “the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ,” (Rom. 5:17) by the “grace of life” (1 Pet. 3:7).
Our holiness: God “called us to a holy calling . . . because of his own purpose and grace” (2 Tim. 1:9).
Our strength for living: “Be strengthened by the grace that is in Jesus Christ” (2 Tim. 2:1) for “it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace” (Heb. 13:9).
Our way of speaking: “Let your speech always be gracious” (Col. 4:6).
Our serving: “Serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Pet. 4:10).
Our sufficiency: “My grace is sufficient for you” (2 Cor. 12:9), “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work” (2 Cor. 9:8)
Our response to difficulty and suffering: We get “grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16), and when “you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace . . . will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (1 Pet. 5:10).
Our participation in God’s mission: As recipients of grace we are privileged to serve as agents of grace. Believers receive grace (Acts 11:23), are encouraged to continue in grace (Acts 13:43), and are called to testify to the grace of God (Acts 20:24). In John 20:21, Jesus says, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” God’s mission is to the entire world (Isa. 49:6; Matt. 28:19; Acts 1:8; 13:47).
Our future: God, and his grace, is everlasting. “Set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:13).
Our hope beyond death: “Grace [reigns] through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 5:21).

The gospel is all about God’s grace through Jesus Christ. That’s why Paul calls it “the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24) and “the word of his grace” (Acts 14:3; 20:32; cf. Col. 1:5–6).

Gratuitous Grace

The gospel of the grace of God is the message everyone needs. The word of grace is proclaimed from every page of the Bible and ultimately revealed in Jesus Christ. The last verse of the Bible summarizes the message from Genesis to Revelation: “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all” (Rev. 22:21). Because of and from Jesus “we have all received grace upon grace” (John 1:16)—the gratuitous and undomesticated grace of God.

Justin Holcomb