How Do You Receive God's Grace?

For most of my life, I have misunderstood God’s grace. I knew what grace was, God’s favor toward the unworthy. I knew that it was a character of God that was given to everyone. I knew that we all sin and need God’s grace to be forgiven and saved. I knew that I did not deserve to be treated so well and so gently, but God lavished His grace on me so that He could forgive me. The tricky part for me was that it was freely given, I did not have to earn it. I thought for the longest time that I needed to work to receive God’s grace.

Ephesians 2:8-10 says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” As a perfectionist, I saw that everything I did was how I earned favor from others and how I was pleased with myself. My accomplishments are what kept me going in life. They drove me to do more. With that mindset, I felt like I also had to earn favor with God.

God’s grace is too inconceivable for us to understand fully, when we think we do, we have already missed the mark. Our world makes us think we must earn something. When we received gifts as a child we were simply excited to get them. We immediately felt gratitude toward them and accepted them with an eager heart. We were ready to rip open the package and begin playing with the new toy we received. When we receive a gift as an adult, we have a mix of emotions; we are excited, but we are also wondering either what we did to earn the gift or what we will need to do to repay the person who gave us the gift. We either think “How much do I owe the giver?”, or “What gift can I buy them that will be better than the one they gave me?” As we live more in this world, we become leery of anything that is given to us freely. We automatically think we have to pay for what we receive.

That is false thinking with God. God freely gives us grace and we only need to respond like children, with gratitude, praise, and excitement. We did not receive God’s grace because of something we did, such as a behavior or merit. We received His grace simply because He loves us. Ephesians 2:6-7 says, “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”

My son recently asked me, “Does God love all people, even those who are out to destroy Him and His creation?” I explained to my son that God’s love and grace is extended to all people, regardless of their actions and decisions. God’s love and grace is extended to all, we must accept Him and the gifts He gives to fully receive them. That does not mean we are always in favor of God. We all sin, that is a fact of life. But does God love us regardless of our sin? Absolutely. Even in the midst of our sin, God is giving us the gift of His grace. What we do with it is the big question that we will discuss in the next two weeks. This week we only want to focus on how we receive the grace that is so freely given to us. Do we receive it wondering what we can do to repay the favor, or do we receive it with a heart of praise and gratitude?

Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” We can approach God and receive His grace with confidence because His arms are always open to us. He does not hand out grace like medals of honor or merit upon our achievements, He hands out grace freely out of His love. When we see the sacrifice He paid on the cross that morning long ago, we see how freely He pours out His love for us. There is nothing we can do to repay that kind of love. When I look at His free grace that way, I see that my mindset of needing to earn grace or work to receive His grace is in vain. How can I earn something that was given to me even before I was born? I do not need to receive the gift of grace with my head hung low, I need to receive it “with confidence” and gratitude for what was given to me even before I was able to earn it.

As Thanksgiving is approaching, let’s not forget to thank God for His grace He generously bestows upon us.

Digging Deeper:

Name a time in your life when you felt like you needed to earn God’s grace.

How is God calling you to receive His grace with a heart of praise, gratitude, and worship?

Say a prayer that God will help you receive His grace with confidence.