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In his marvelous book, Knowing God, J. I. Packer says that many church people “pay lip-service to the idea of grace, but there they stop. Their conception of grace is not so much debased as non-existent” (p. 116-117).
We’ve been talking about what it means to live a grace-full life, to truly understand God’s grace to us, which equips us to dispense grace to others. I find that I must be intentional about living a grace-full life – I have to think about it, pray about, and make choices each day that lead me to be a grace-full person.
We’ve looked at the ABCs of graceful living this week:
A – Abound in generosity, in good works.
B – Live a bitter-less life. We must pull up those weeds of bitterness as soon as they start to grow,
because bitterness chokes grace out of our lives.
C – Learn to be content. Contentment is a trademark of a grace-full life.
This is a good description of grace-full living, though not exhaustive. But where do we get this grace? We can’t find it in ourselves; we can’t obtain it through good works or trying harder.
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 find grace at the throne of God, which is a throne of grace. God is enthroned in grace. And the incredibly good news is that we can approach the throne of grace with confidence. We can be absolutely confident that we will be accepted there if we go in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And we can be absolutely confident that grace will be given to us to help us.
Maybe, like me, you are not a terribly graceful person, but would you like to be a grace-full person—full of God’s grace which you can give to others? It is available to any who will be intentional about living in the ABCs of God’s grace and making regular visits to the throne of grace.
If you would like to read the entire week’s message, click here to view/download the PDF.