2 Peter 3:18a But grow in grace,

As I said yesterday, examine grace as a gift but understand what it does, so that it might be used and not to place it back in the box and put it away on the back shelf of your closest.

John 1:14,16 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.

Another way to look at John 1:16 is to say grace received is grace extended. Our Lord is gracious, He is grace and truth. If we are to be conformed into the image of our Lord Jesus Christ as we are promised in Romans 8:29, then His characteristic of grace is to become our characteristic in conformance.

Colossians 4:6 Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.

Grace abides in us to be gracious to others, so that they might come to know that side of our gracious Lord.  Grace is a resident characteristic of Christ. Are we instantly gracious? I wasn’t. Grace had to perform its transformative work in me in order for me to develop that characteristic. It was not natural.

Ephesians 3:7 Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power.

Romans 12:2-3 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.

We have come full circle as grace is tied to faith.

Romans 4:2-4 For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.

For this reason the Christian community has defined grace as unmerited favor. I find that definition to be inadequate to explain all that grace involves. Simple definitions often do that. If I were to ask you to do me a favor your first response would be “What?” Favor only implies benefit and does not define the benefit.

Here in Romans Paul relates the gracious favor of justification in relationship to work. It is a free gift based on Christ gift to us. All we have to do is receive that gift. Salvation cannot be earned. Where we are looking into these issues of daily salvation and those blessings that are bestowed upon us we add new words into the understanding of those blessings. They define the favor bestowed through grace.

Grace defines the reason for the favor but does not limit those favors to only one thing. The reason God is gracious to us is because once we become betrothed to His Son Jesus Christ, He treats us as family members. Grace is God’s love towards us as His children. If we think of all the things we do for our children because we love them, grace could not explain all that we do, only why.

If that was all that grace is we would be through and move on. Grace has one more fascinating aspect besides being God’s unmerited favor. That definition does not pertain to the residence of grace but merely to the source. One should examine the free gift and see what is does in order to use the gift rather than putting it back in the box and store it in the back of the closet.