Amazing Grace

If you’ve been a Christian for any amount of time, chances are you have struggled with frustrating habits or been disappointed by failures or just couldn’t do “it” (whatever your “it” is). But once you have a revelation of God’s grace in your life, you’ll know just how amazing it is!

Well, what is grace?

I’m glad you asked. But first, think of a problem you’re having in your life right now—a bad habit, conflict in a relationship, a particularly long and difficult period of testing. Now I want to ask you: Have you been trying to make things work out? If so, have they…or are you discouraged, disappointed, or frustrated?

If your answer is yes, then you are in the best place to realize just how amazing God’s grace really is! You see, grace is the power to overcome bad habits, to make peace in a relationship, or to bring you victoriously through a time of testing—without all your trying. That’s because it is God’s power, not ours, that overcomes our evil tendencies.

All that our trying has ever done, or will ever really do, is cause frustration. We can never make ourselves better by trying…praying more or longer, studying more of the Word, performing good works, etc. Don’t get me wrong…it’s not bad to do any of these things. In fact, it’s good. It’s just that doing them in God’s power is the only way those things will have any real and lasting effect in our lives.

The interesting thing about trying is that it’s not scriptural. Yes, the word is in the Bible. But, it’s not there telling us to try to do better or be better. If you look it up, you’ll see that when that word is used, it’s in reference to the “trying” of our faith, “trying” the spirits, or “trying” us to prove our character. All our trying, or human effort, is really just works of the flesh that can never bring about the change in us that only God’s power, or grace, can.