Who is Grace?

Grace
Definition: effortless beauty, a sense of fitness, a disposition to be generous, mercy coupled with kindness, honor or favor rendered by one who need not do so, Divine love bestowed freely, an excellence or power granted by God.
I'm thinking about grace a lot these days.....What? Am I in sin? Have I "fallen away"? No nothing like that....Did I tell a white lie or say a swear word? No small sins either, that I know of....then why am I thinking about grace?
I asked the Lord the same question... :) "Am I in trouble, God?" lol "Then why is grace on my mind" Then very clearly it came to me..."Don't you think you need Grace all the time, even when there is nothing wrong?"

Only Grace
There is no guilt here
There is no shame
No pointing fingers
There is no blame
What happened yesterday has disappeared
The dirt has washed away
And now it's clear

There's only grace
There's only love
There's only mercy
And believe me it's enough
Your sins are gone Without a trace
There's nothing left now
There's only grace

You're starting over now
Under the Son
You're stepping forward now
A new life has begun
Your new life has begun

There's only grace
There's only love
There's only mercy
And believe me it's enough
Your sins are gone Without a trace
There's nothing left now
There's only grace

And if you should fall again
Get back up, get back up
Reach out and take my hand
Get back up, get back up
Get back up again Get back up again

There's only grace
There's only love
There's only mercy
And believe me it's enough
Your sins are gone Without a trace
There's nothing left now
There's only grace
There's only mercy
And believe me it's enough
Your sins are gone Without a trace
There's nothing left now
There's only grace
So get back up, get back up again
Matthew West

What a great song! Sins are gone...nothing left...starting over....what happened yesterday has disappeared...there is no blame.....But do we believe all this stuff? Really believe it?

"Of course we do," you say. Of course there is grace in unlimited quantities for unbelievers who are coming to Christ, no matter what they've done,....or for new believers just starting out on their walk, they always stumble. Of course we believe it, it is the bedrock of the gospel. We hear this preached Sunday after Sunday...in every church, on every Christian televison program, in every Billy Graham crusade. He is a God of grace. He died so that we might have this grace to cover all our sins. We all know this stuff...

So what happens after we believe. Does the grace suddenly stop or slow to a trickle? Is the unlimited kind only for sinners coming to Christ for the first time or after you get really dirty again? What about me, what about us as believers? What happened to our God of Grace? Did He change? Did the playing rules change? I know...now we can't simply turn to Him and ask His Grace...we have to pay some penalty of shame, guilt, embarrassment, public humiliation....after all its only fair, right?
Somehow we seem to think....or at least convey in our actions, body language, words and deeds that while His grace is unlimited for "sinners", it is very limited for those of us who have already confessed Him as Lord. We don't rate as much grace as the heathen do 'cause we should "know better".
Why do we do that, why do we think that? How dare we! How dare we emasculate Jesus Christ!

He is the personage Grace. It is who He has always been. He did not "become" grace because of sin...He was already grace before sin ever entered the picture. He is the same yesterday, today and forever, He was the Lamb slain before the foundations of the world... "what?, was there sin in eternity past?" of course not...but grace was offered none the less from the Father to the Son and the Son now pours out to us that same grace...It is not something He provides or extends because His Father told Him to. Grace is not just a piece of the "Salvation" package. It is WHO HE IS! Just as He is Love...He is Grace. He cannot stop being who He is.
He is Grace when you first meet Him...and you are overwhelmed by Him...He is Grace when you stumble along as a new believer...He is Grace when you are tried and true, mature in the faith...He is new Grace every morning, every day, every single minute.
It is not what He does...It is Who He is!
He is
effortless beauty, a sense of fitness, a disposition to be generous, mercy coupled with kindness, honor or favor rendered by one who need not do so, Divine love bestowed freely, an excellence or power granted by God

Why then can we, His people, not exhibit this face of Jesus Christ and be grace...not only to the world but to one another?....if the Father can pour Grace into His Son before the foundations of the world, His Son who was and is sinless, and the Son can in turn pour Himself as Grace into our lives then surely by His effortless beauty and disposition to be generous we can do the same for one another. Our brothers and sisters in Christ who make up His very body on this earth are still in need of Him in the shape of Grace every day ...I know I am.... Actually in the giving, we pour grace back to the one who is Grace....wow!

Be GRACE to someone today...