The best definition of grace in the whole bible is found in second Peter.
2peter 1:2 Grace and peace be unto you through the knowledge (intimacy) of God, and of Jesus our Lord, according( in what manner or way, how) as his divine power hath given unto us all things(totality, perfect provision) that pertain unto life(divine life) and godliness , through the knowledge of him that called us to glory and virtue
What is grace? Grace is his divine power.
What is the purpose of grace? It literally says – who has called us to his own glory and excellence.
The purpose of Grace is to enable us to partake of God’s own glory and virtue.
It is a free gift – it is all the power of God given to us freely so that we can be what we could never be and do what we could never do by our own strength and by our own resources.
Now if we can get this into our spirit then nothing will be impossible to us.
Let us use a natural example, to better understand grace.
There is a little town with one bank in it, and everyone in the town is dependent upon this bank.
Now there was a bank clerk who had been working for this bank for many years but he had been stealing money, he had been falsifying the accounts and stealing money. And for quite a while he gets away with it and then one day he is caught and is called into the office of the president.
He has stolen many thousands of dollars over the years and is an absolutely guilty criminal who has no defense. And the president looks up from his desk and says you’ve been a very wicked man, for years we have trusted you and you have stolen money from this bank. I ought to send you to jail and make you pay back every dollar that you have stolen but I’ve decided to have mercy on you. I am not going to send you to jail and make you pay back the money.
Now this is mercy, this is not grace. So he goes out from the office as a forgiven criminal. He is known throughout the town as a person who ought to be in jail but the president of the bank had mercy on him. So he walks around the town as a guy who is a forgiven criminal. This is how many Christians live. So the guy can’t even get a decent job and he never has any status in the town because is known as the guy who ought to be in jail, he is known as the forgiven criminal. This is mercy.
Mercy is a wonderful thing but grace is much better. Many Christians rejoice in the mercy of God. But in the heavenly tabernacle it is not a mercy seat it is a throne of grace.
The message of grace is much more. The same guilty bank clerk comes before the president of the bank and the president says you been a very wicked man and I ought to send you to jail and make you pay back every dollar that you have stolen from this bank but I have decided to be gracious to you.
I’m not going to send you to jail; I am not going to make you pay back what you have stolen. Instead from this day forward I’m making you co – president of the bank. I am giving you a base salary of 200,000 a year, plus 50% of the profits. Come and see your new office. We ordered a brand-new Mercedes for you and its being delivered tomorrow. And we bought a brand-new house for you to live in. We want you to live according to the dignity of your status.
And when he goes back into the town all the people are in awe of him, because it is the co-president of the bank. Anyplace he goes will give him credit. He owns the town. This is grace.
When we receive Jesus Christ as our lord and savior, and our spirit becomes alive unto God, we have instantly become a co-heir of all that God is and all that God has. We have been made to be seated with Christ in heavenly places. We own the bank.
John 1: 16And of (motion out of) his fullness (abundance, completeness). Have all we received, and grace for (implying succession) grace. 17For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
All the grace that was upon our Lord Jesus Christ, we have received it. Our problem is the problem of learning how to access it. Once we learn how to access it we will be going from grace to grace.
The English word grace is mentioned in 122 verse’s in the New Testament. We find that everything is by grace. When grace is mentioned it is always linked to faith.
8For (signifies “and in fact,”) by grace (the divine influence of His Spirit, His Ability and His Nature) are ye saved (the spiritual state brought about by the finished result of the action or process, restoration to the image God intended) through (by means of, instrument) faith (conviction of the truth imparted through contact with God’s Spirit); and that not (full negation) of yourselves: it is the gift of God
Grace is the treasure house of all God’s resources freely made available to us. But faith is the key that opens the door and allows us to access that grace. If we cannot move in faith then we cannot access the grace of God.
How do we get faith?
Faith is a fruit of the Spirit in our lives. In order for a tree to produce fruit, there has to be life flowing in that tree.
God is a believer. The life of God is a believing life. And if we have God’s life flowing into us then we have God’s ability to believe his word.
Faith comes to us by the life of God, the very Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is a Spirit of faith.
God will give to us His ability to believe His word. God can work this ability into us by giving us His life so that we come to the place where we believe God’s word the way that God believes His word and then we have God’s faith, it comes by receiving God’s life.
If we just focus on getting more and more of God then we will have more and more of His ability to believe His word. It all comes by the Spirit, if we want more and more of grace; then we are going to need to have more and more of the Spirit of grace.
We can’t really increase in our ability to receive the Spirit without drawing nearer and nearer to God to know Him in intimacy.
The reason we do not have the faith to access the grace that God has made available to us, is because we have been distracted by other things.
It is all about intimacy, faith works by love. When we learn how to give God what he wants, and he just wants us to love Him back with the Love He has put in our hearts, then we will find that intimacy releases the flow of life, that releases the faith to unlock all the treasures that are already ours.