“God’s marvellous grace has manifested in Person, bringing salvation for everyone. This same grace teaches us how to live each day as we turn our backs on ungodliness and indulgent lifestyles, and it equips us to live self-controlled, upright, godly lives in this present age.” Titus 2:11-12 TPT.

Our God’s great grace has been manifest in Christ. In order to understand it we must carefully observe and interact with Him. Jesus Christ is God’s grace in human form. I deliberately said that today, because sometimes grace is reduced to a nebulous thing that we are supposed to have toward everyone else, as well as live by it. Nebulous things add to uncertainty and they are definitely hard to grab hold of!  

Our uncertainty disappears when we understand that Christ is God’s illustration of grace, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness etc. in action! Almighty God gave us a glorious gift – CHRIST. Grace we can see and hear in His book. Reading the Gospels makes us acquainted with what grace looks like because it is the way SomeOne lived. It is not about stories – the stories Jesus told are illustrations of God’s ways in action. If all we do is read the Gospels and think, “oh that’s so nice.” We missed the point!  These ‘stories’ show us how to act and react!

Jesus Christ is God’s LIVING GRACE. God does not need visual aids – He went way beyond them to sending SomeOne Who would illustrate a lifestyle! The bible is not just teaching – Jesus, in the Person of the Holy Spirit,  is with us so we can learn His Ways. The way Christ lived His life, is the way we have been designed to live ours. Yeah. Ya might want to sit and think on that one for the next 20 years. 

It is error to think that Jesus could do stuff because He is God’s Son and He is ‘special.’ He’s not superman who came from another planet and that means He can do stuff we can’t!  He did not operate in some sort of incredible way that meant He always did things right and was full of the power of God all the time. He simply chose to live in the Holy Spirit’s Presence in all things.  

Jesus Christ chose to come to earth and be a man – that’s Grace and Love IN ACTION. That was a normal little baby boy born in Bethlehem, He chose to learn about God from when He was young, and He did so well at it He amazed all the people who supposedly knew everything! Jesus made knowing God His priority from His youth. He had grace on His life as a child.

But He was tempted just like we are. The difference between Him and us, is that He said no! There is great power in our NO! I know that today, it seems like ‘no’ is an optional extra, but it isn’t. Saying no to temptation and sin is the way into bringing that new heart God gave us into this life … our reality. Doing what God wants becomes our life-blood. It’s the way to be dead to self and alive to God. And every single thing you do counts! Praise God we can repent from our lack of single-mindedness and go back and partake of His grace – over and over again.

We are limiting ourselves by thinking that Christ was some sort of special-case human being so He could do stuff we cannot. That is a lie from the pit. “God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.” 1 John 4:17.

Fear of over-stepping our place in God … is still FEAR!  We start to overstep when we use God for our own purposes or benefit.  Our Lord Jesus Christ was the perfect example of grace in action. He had authority, but it was love-based authority, and He allowed His Father to decide what that looked like! Our hearts matter, and God knows when we choose to excuse ourselves rather than obey. It is the things that we choose to do that can shoot us down. Power can be misused by self-indulgence, instead of ushering in God’s kingdom! Jesus came to serve, and so we are here to serve – God first, and then others. 

God’s Grace is not of this world. It is a heavenly quality which is to be lived out in everyday life. And when we look deeply into how Christ acted, and what He said, we gain His clues from His lifestyle. He lived in grace, He constantly gave away grace even to His tormentors.  Like I said, the things Jesus said are not just stories or parables – they are a way to live. Paul, Luke, John and Jude etc. developed these themes in the Epistles. They tell us how these things worked in their lives. In Paul’s case they give us further revelation of what God did when He sent us Christ, why He did it, and how it works! 

The bible is God’s book about GRACE. Grace is God’s enabling power to prevail over our own sinful nature, sin in this world, and the devil. This is God Himself speaking …“I will graciously give you a new, tender heart and put a new, willing spirit inside you. I will remove your hard heart of stone and give you an obedient, responsive heart instead.” Ezekiel 36:26.

We have already been given this new heart, God gave it to us – because Christ made a way for us. Grace is LIVING  and practical it is not just a mushy attitude toward others. It is strong and powerful. Jesus Christ is our perfect example of God’s grace – alive on this earth!  He showed us that it can be done and how it is done! 👋