Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.
We are who we are and where we are because of God’s Grace. We must also know that Grace is a gift that we can never earn or loose, regardless of what we have done. We’ll dig into this more later.

Last time we discussed the 5 Pillars of Christian Maturity. These 5 principles, when comprehended and embraced are guaranteed to produce GROWTH in any believer. Today the focus will be on pillar # 1 the Grace of God, a gift that will keep on giving.

Grace is defined as God’s unmerited, undeserved favor; Strong’s defines it as the divine influence which operates in humans to regenerate and sanctify. That’s a lot right; so what does Grace mean to me? God’s supernatural empowerment, whether strength, wisdom and endurance; we’ll provide a few examples later.

There are a few things we must know about GRACE:

1. GRAVITY of Grace:
   So I love the Lord because I was trying to find the perfect words to describe Grace and the power of God’s unmerited Favor on our lives. As I was listing to a message this morning before church, I heard to preacher use the term Gravity. Boom!!!! The fireworks went off because like Gravity; Grace does not just have one simple definition it’s multifaceted. Gravity is defined as extreme magnitude or alarming importance; seriousness, other words include significance, profundity, momentousness, weightiness. All express how important Grace is to our Christian beliefs; we are saved by God’s Grace. Grace is a unprecedented power that allows God to look beyond the Sin inherent in each one of us to love and allow us to enter into His Kingdom. Grace is Significant!!! Yet while so profound, it is also like Gravity (the force that attracts a body toward the center of the earth, or toward any other physical body having mass), in that Grace attracts us to the God who is at the center of our lives. His Grace attracts us by His love and it attracts others to us by its power. When God’s Grace is upon us, others want to be around us because it produces; success, favor and unexplainable blessings. Whether saved on unsaved people want to be around those three things. As we prepare to GROW in 2019, we must understand the GRAVITY of Grace.
2. Grace enables REDEMPTION: Salvation is possible but only by God’s Grace. Grace empowers each of us to believe in God, trust in His Son Jesus and receive His Holy Spirit into our hearts. Even if we tried we could not do it on our own, our flesh would not allow it only our Spirit which is given to us by God. Redemption is the action of saving or being saved from sin, error, or evil. It is the act of being saved from our own sinful nature. It is the act of Jesus Christ giving His life on the Cross that we might all receive Salvation. [Galatians 3:13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”).]
3. ABUNDANT Grace: Ephesians 3:20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us. Grace is that power working in us to do miraculous things; and it is not just enough but abundant. As a matter of fact, the power in us is exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think more than we can even imagine. God had given us more than we will ever know; often we only witness it when life brings challenges or if the devil attacks us. Remember in 2019; no matter how inept you feel; the Grace God has given you is exceedingly abundantly above.
4. The Grace CONFESSION: Life & Death is in the power of the tongue and we must confess the Grace upon our life if we desire to see it manifest. What do I mean? When we say we don’t have enough, we’re not enough, we can’t, I can’t do it. What we fail to see is that when we do this our words are acting as a “clog” in the pipe of God’s Grace. God always wants to flow His Grace into our lives and when we confess that God’s Grace is more than able, Your Grace is empowering me, and Your Goodness & Grace will follow me all the days of my life; we unclog all of the pipes God has opened to us.
5. The Execution of Grace: “Ephesians 3:20 Now to Him who is able to do.” At some point we have to DO IT!!! We have to execute Grace to others just as God has executed to us. While Christ’s sacrifice is God’s execution of GRACE to us all, that same action gives us the ability/responsibility to execute grace to the people closest to us in our lives and those we may encounter during your lifetime.  Whether it be forgiving someone who has done you wrong or simply giving a smile/speaking a kind word to a stranger; God’s Grace should be shown thru every Christian.  God’s Grace was given to us as a gift.  This means that it was not given as a wage or a reward for some action; we cannot earn it.  Since it is a gift, it can also not be lost or taken away from us; these is no action we can take to lose it.  The Lord gives us grace every day, multiple times a day. We should be so willing to do the same for others.  After all, God blesses us in order for us to be His hands & feet here on earth to be a blessing to others.  We can do that when we extend GRACE in this land of significant judgement.  When we extend GRACE, we show off the “goodness of God” (…it is the goodness of God that leads to repentance Rom 2:4) to a lost world who needs it as well as to a family of believers who could use some encouragement.

Recapping, understanding the GRACE God has shown us will help each of us GROW in our walk with Jesus. The forgiveness of sin, and power to live a life that gives Him glory can only cause us to mature as Christians and be an example to others.