What is Grace?
A simple explanation of grace is that when Jesus died on the cross he took all of our sin to the grave with Him. Therefore, through our belief in and trust in Jesus, God does not see us in our sin and failure. Because our sin and failure was already judged and paid for through the cross, He sees us as completely forgiven and free of sin. He relates to us as He would Jesus, and we are adopted as children of God. He blesses us because of the work of Jesus, and not based on our own works or merit. Grace means the unmerited favor of God. We didn’t earn it…can’t earn it, because on our own we would never be good enough to please a Holy God. What God is pleased with is the finished work of His Son on the cross, so when we trust in that, God is pleased with us as well. Grace is when God gives us all the good we don’t deserve, Mercy is when God doesn’t give us what we do deserve.
Some of our Favorite Grace Quotes
Because salvation is by grace through faith, I believe that among the countless number of people standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands (see Revelation 7:9), I shall see the prostitute from the Kit-Kat Ranch in Carson City, Nevada, who tearfully told me that she could find no other employment to support her two-year-old son. I shall see the woman who had an abortion and is haunted by guilt and remorse but did the best she could faced with grueling alternatives; the businessman besieged with debt who sold his integrity in a series of desperate transactions; the insecure clergyman addicted to being liked, who never challenged his people from the pulpit and longed for unconditional love; the sexually abused teen molested by his father and now selling his body on the street, who, as he falls asleep each night after his last ‘trick’, whispers the name of the unknown God he learned about in Sunday school.
‘But how?’ we ask.
Then the voice says, ‘They have washed their robes and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb.’
There they are. There *we* are – the multitude who so wanted to be faithful, who at times got defeated, soiled by life, and bested by trials, wearing the bloodied garments of life’s tribulations, but through it all clung to faith.
My friends, if this is not good news to you, you have never understood the gospel of grace.
Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out
When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer.
Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out
At the end of the day, when I am lying in bed and I know the chances of any of our theology being exactly right are a million to one, I need to know that God has things figured out, that if my math is wrong we are still going to be okay. And wonder is that feeling we get when we let go of our silly answers, our mapped out rules that we want God to follow. I don’t think there is any better worship than wonder.
Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
…I want my spirituality to rid me of hate, not give me reason for it.
Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
Grace is not a theology. It is not a subject matter. It is not a doctrine. It is a person, and his name is Jesus. That’s the reason the Lord wants you to receive the abundance of grace, for to have the abundance of grace is to have the abundance of Jesus.
Joseph Prince, Destined to Reign
Grace is a system of living whereby God blesses us because we are in Jesus Christ, and for no other reason at all.
Steve McVey, Grace Rules
If heaven were by merit, it would never be heaven to me, for if I were in it I should say, ‘I am sure I am here by mistake; I am sure this is not my place; I have no claim to it.’ But if it be of grace and not of works, then we may walk into heaven with boldness.
Charles Spurgeon
The ministry of the law, which rightly condemned me, brought out my failures, but the ministry of the Spirit brings out His success.
Ralph Harris, God’s Astounding Opinion of You
If a drunk comes to a service… (it’s) ‘Brother, God loves you.’… But woe to that drunk if he comes back drunk after being saved. God loved him when he was a sinner and drunk, but if he’s born again and he’s still drunk – God forbid! Most Christians would not offer the same kind of unconditional love. Doesn’t something seem inconsistent about that? Grace is not just for the lost. Christians must live by grace too.
Andrew Wommack, The True Nature of God