ENCOURAGED in Every Season: God’s Gift of Grace (Part 9 of 12)
In this ENCOURAGED series, I am passionate about you knowing your Faithful God in every season of your life. As you seek Jesus daily, I desire you to grow in your faith and relationship with Him so you can joyfully embrace Him as your true Encourager and proclaim His faithfulness to others. I pray that you would hold on to the hope and peace found only in Christ and learn how to embrace whatever season you are presently in your life, bringing glory to Him.
Continuing with the ENCOURAGED acrostic, the ninth practical way to be encouraged is to give and receive:
G~GOD’S GIFT OF GRACE
“See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” Hebrews 12:15
Do you see and savor the glorious gift of God’s grace working presently in your life? So often, if we are not careful and acutely aware of His grace working in our lives, we will miss it! What is this magnificent gift of God’s grace, and do we receive it joyfully and graciously extend it to others? How do we often miss or forfeit His grace working in our lives?
God’s grace is His unmerited, unearned favor freely given to us in Jesus Christ. His gift of grace is not based on our performance, but solely on Christ’s performance on our behalf. Because of Jesus and His gift of grace working in our lives, we are chosen, loved, redeemed, accepted, forgiven, and precious in His sight. These precious Truths give purpose to our days and joy to our hearts. We need to take these words of life and grace to heart.
God’s gift is freely given—not earned—and is to be received with gratitude. As we receive His grace with genuine joy, we too should desire to extend this precious gift of grace to others. However, we often have difficulty in both receiving and extending this gift of grace. Oftentimes, we put stipulations and conditions upon the grace we offer to and withhold from others.
Throughout the Bible, God shows us a different way by lavishly pouring His grace into the lives of His children. The greatest demonstration of this grace was seen through the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ. We can learn from and demonstrate His example of grace as we are faced with difficult situations and relationships within our various seasons of life.
“From His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:16-17).
Why do we often struggle so much with withholding grace from others and ourselves?
In the moments when we have hurt feelings and are excluded, judged, spoken to unkindly, or forgotten, we are tempted to withhold this gift of grace from those who have wounded or offended us. By God’s grace, we can choose not to be offended—not in our own strength, but in His. The Holy Spirit living within us empowers us with the ability to choose to forgive and love despite being offended. Instead of holding on to bitterness and unforgiveness, we can choose to love, forgive, and extend God’s grace to others.
Oftentimes, we withhold this grace from others because we feel they need to earn it. This false narrative stems from our erroneous thinking that we too need to earn God’s grace through our performance—being a ‘good’ person, checking all the boxes, and striving to earn His favor.
In the same way that we cannot earn God’s favor, we cannot expect others to perform to get back into ‘good’ graces with us. The moment we base grace on performance is the moment grace is no longer called grace.
If we are not careful, we can fall into a performance-based salvation mentality that seeps its way into our personal relationships and situations where we demand the same of others that we feel is expected of us. We expect justice, apologies, and compensation for our offenses, but what we truly need is grace—God’s amazing grace. His way is the only way!
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:8-10
Pause and think about God’s amazing grace for a moment. The Creator of the Universe, the One through whom all things were made, loved you so much that He stepped down from Heaven, took on human flesh, and made His dwelling among us to reveal the very grace of God. Jesus Christ reveals God’s glorious grace to us.
“The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and Truth…For the law was given through Moses; grace and Truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made Him known” (John 1:14, 17-18).
Jesus Christ came that you might live, be forgiven of your sins, and have peace in your heart. He came to be with you in your present circumstances, comfort your heart, and strengthen you. He came to reveal Himself to you so that you could enter into a personal relationship with Him. He came to give you life—life to the fullest joy—so that you could know Him and make His grace known to others.
Yet knowing all of these Truths, we still often choose to forfeit this amazing grace in our lives.
One way we forfeit God’s grace is through our pride. Pride refuses to yield to God’s sovereignty and accept His grace. A heart rooted in pride and unbelief insists on doing it her own way; whereas, a humble, teachable heart is quick to admit her need and complete dependence on the Lord.
“God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6).
As we surrender this pride and humble our hearts before Him, He will lift us up with His sustaining grace. “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up” (James 4:10).
Another way we forfeit God’s grace is by worrying and being anxious. Jesus shares with us in His Word, “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:33-34).
The same sustaining grace that He gives us today is the same grace that He will abundantly supply tomorrow. When we speculate, presume, and formulate our ‘what-if’ scenarios for our circumstances, we choose to forfeit this gracious gift of God. He gives us this grace for what He has presently called us to face today, not tomorrow.
We can also forfeit God’s grace by clinging to worthless idols in our lives. “Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs…salvation comes from the Lord” (Jonah 2:8-9). When we allow anything to replace God’s rightful place in the center of our lives, we inevitably—sometimes, unknowingly—cling to an idol. As the grace of God works in our hearts, He will reveal these areas where we are clinging to idols so we can surrender them to Him and, by His grace, turn away from them.
Lastly, we forfeit God’s grace through unforgiveness, bitterness, envy, and jealousy, which is often reflected in our words. “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone” (Colossians 4:6).
Instead, may we choose Christ’s example of forgiveness, love, joy, encouragement, and gratitude. A grace-filled heart is a joyful, prayerful, thankful heart. “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).
As we look to Jesus, we learn how to season the seasons of our lives with His abundant grace. As we have freely received God’s grace, may we generously and willingly extend this gift of grace into the lives of others.
- As you meditate on the gift of God’s grace—that you are chosen, loved, redeemed, forgiven, accepted, and precious in His sight—think about whom you can extend this same gift of grace to in your own life.
- In what areas are you forfeiting the grace of God in your own life?
“Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Hebrews 4:16
