What is God's Grace?

What is God's Grace?

We all have heard the song "Amazing Grace" but have you ever thought of what the word Grace means? Grace is God's unmerited favour given to undeserving sinners. No one will be in Heaven except by the grace of God. In Ephesians 2:8-10 it says "8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."

Mankind is justified not by works but by faith, and all of this is by grace. There is common grace given to all mankind and without God's common grace we wouldn't have any of our blessings or needs met. God's saving and sanctifying grace is different. Through Christ, the church and the New Covenant God asks mankind to repent and believe in His Son for Salvation. The gospel isn't an easy way out of an impossible situation, it's our only way out as human beings. Why couldn't Jesus just die for us, and that's it, everything is finished and we don't have to do anything.

In one sense that is true, Jesus' sacrifice is all that we have to believe in, he doesn't have to die again. God does ask us to believe and to have faith, but all this is done through his saving Grace. We are human and we can't see the future and we sin, and make mistakes but Grace allows us to work out our own salvation. St. Pope John Paul II said that God has entrusted us with our own salvation, the church is a part of it, but we are entrusted with our own salvation. This is not the opposite of grace it works with grace in the fact that we are responsible for either rejecting God's Grace or accepting it. We accept God's Grace by and through faith. This is Mike.

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