God's Grace

I cannot get enough of God's Word these days. If I could, I would spend just about every hour of everyday reading the Bible, Commentaries, and digesting what is said throughout the Scriptures. One theme that I've been noticing a lot of in my reading is that of grace. In all honesty, I've never really taken the time to research and understand what it means to have grace. What is grace? What's the importance of it?

A great resource that I've found is biblegateway.com - it has over 30 different translations of the Bible, and it also has an "additional resources" section which hosts Bible Commentaries and Bible Dictionaries. Incredible! It's definitely a resource that I've found highly valuable.

According to the dictionary on biblegateway.com, grace is:

"1.) Of form or person (2.) Favour, kindness, friendship (3.) God's forgiving mercy (4.) The gospel as distinguished from the law (5.) Gifts freely bestowed by God; as miracles, prophecy, tongues (6.) Christian virtues (7.) The glory hereafter to be revealed."

Kindness, friendship, mercy, blessings - that's what makes grace. There are different times for grace, and each season of life calls for a different use of grace. 2 Timothy 1:9 describes God's favor as grace - because of his kindness we're saved through Christ. It;s God's forgiving mercy shown in Ephesians 2:8 "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is a gift from God."

God's grace in the gift of prophecy/miracles is seen in Paul's writings in Ephesians 3:8 "Although I am less than least of all God's people, this grace was given to me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." And the grace of the hereafter that is to be revealed as seen in I Peter 1:13.

Overall, God's grace is everywhere. He has mercy on those He loves through His grace. He supports us because He loves us. His grace is sufficient for us - meaning that His love, mercy, and forgiveness is enough for us to suffice here on earth.

So what does it mean for us to share/show grace? I would say it's when we show good will toward people - looking out for their best interests by building them up instead of belittling. It's us freely giving favor and love to others - without expectation of repayment. It's not holding grudges or bitterness, but genuinely caring and serving others. Grace is not the easy road - in fact it's incredibly difficult to show grace and mercy to someone or a group of people that have hurt you. But the respect and the knowledge of doing right is far worth it in the end.

Let's make the choice to show grace, love, mercy, and compassion toward people. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, until they prove to us otherwise. Not looking for the bad in them, but for the good. Yes, we're all sinners. And as Christians let's do what we're called to - and love others. :-)