God’s grace, His undeserved favor, His loyal love, His loving kindness, His goodness – these were all manifested by Jesus Christ.
It is only by having God’s grace, His undeserved favor, His mercy, that we can hope to have everlasting life. (Eph 2:8) But we cannot make God give us His grace. Nor can we earn it. Happily, however, He offers it willingly, of His own initiative. “Why then,” you might ask, “is not everyone living in God’s grace without any war, disease, poverty , or hopelessness?”
And the answer is simple – because few people allow themselves to live in God’s grace. For the most part, people live under a perceived “cosmic law” of justice, whether they recognize it or not. It’s often called “karma.” Primarily, that’s because they haven’t been taught how to live under God’s Grace, (Ro 6:14) or even that it’s possible.
Our spiritual DNA, Christ, (1 Co 1:30) was designed to be successful, and proved Himself to be such by the life that He lived in complete obedience to His God and Father; (Jn 15:10) even to the point of giving up that life as a sacrificial lamb. He totally succeeded at fulfilling the mission God had given Him, to rescue humanity from death.
Just as an acorn has within itself the DNA to be a successful oak tree, so do each of us in whom Christ dwells, have within ourselves the spiritual DNA to be successful adults full of God’s grace, (Eph 3:19) i.e. – be holy as God is holy. 1 Pe 1:16; Amos 3:3
We can’t make ourselves holy. But we can allow ourselves to become holy, by allowing Christ to conform us to His own image. (Ro 8:29) We can do that by obeying the “still, small voice”, or “whisper”, (1 Ki 19:12) of our spiritual DNA, Christ in whom we abide, and who abides in us. (Jn 15:4, 7) Or as Paul put it, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by the faith of the Son of God…” “I do not set aside the grace of God.” Gal 2:20-21 KJV
Paul was saying that he didn’t ignore God’s undeserved goodness. Rather, he benefited from it. That goodness, that will, that plan for his (and our) success (Jer 29:11) was built into Jesus Christ, our Shepherd, …our Teacher, …our Head, …our Lord. (Are you getting the sense that He’s been given the authority to tell us what to do?) That’s why He invites us, “Come to me all you who are toiling and loaded down, and you will find rest for your souls. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.” Mt 11:28-29
We learn from Him, not specifically from what we read in the Bible, but rather by listening to the “still, small voice/whisper” in answer to our prayers. (We do, however, need to keep studying the Bible (Ps 1:2) so that we can get better at distinguishing between our Shepherd’s voice and our own desires.) The acorn mentioned earlier has no choice about obeying its DNA. If given the right conditions, it will grow into an oak tree. We, on the other hand, can ignore our spiritual DNA. We may do that because we don’t know how to be aware of His voice, and/or don’t want to cooperate with that “whisper,” the voice of our Shepherd. Jn 10:4
A fish lives immersed in water, and extracts its air therefrom. We are similarly immersed in God’s grace, (we don’t have a choice about that,) and can, but don’t have to, extract Holy Spirit therefrom. But if we do so choose, and give ourselves permission, we can gratefully acknowledge that we are immersed in God’s grace. And what a joy! For we will see that more and more, the “Light of the world” (Jn 8:12) is shining through us (Mt 5:16) to the benefit of everyone in our circle of influence, and to God’s pleasure and glory. That is, in actuality, the only way we can hallow God’s name; that is, by manifesting God’s grace. Mt 6:9
Do you want to hallow God’s name by letting His grace be manifested through you?
Thanks!