What is Grace? Many often think it is God’s permission to sin without being punished, but that is not exactly true. In fact, the word grace or charis, as used in the New Testament, has three or four different but similar meanings, which is one reason why there is little understanding of this miraculous source of power. Grace can mean kindness, or it can mean to give something freely that is undeserved, it can also mean the gift given, but when most commonly used by Paul it was the free gift of the power to be transformed that enabled him to live a life like Jesus, overcoming his normal human carnal nature. Without this empowerment, we cannot live overcoming lives as believers ... WITH IT we can overcome the trials of the entire fallen world.

In this short teaching you will learn what Grace is, why you need it, and where you can access it in your time of need.

Strength to win a battle

When you are in a battle and a certain kind of strength is needed to win, and you lack that strength, what does it look like as you fail that battle? Suppose the battle was one that you needed Love to win, and if you don’t have enough love to win that battle, you’d fail. What will it look like as you lose that battle? Or what if you are in a battle and to win you needed Joy, but you lacked the joy needed to overcome. What would that look like to fail such a battle? Not a pretty picture! Or what if you needed peace or patience to overcome a battle, which you didn’t have enough of at that time, and what if someone had a camera that followed you around and was going to record your struggle as you failed that test. What would they record with their camera as the circumstances surrounded you, attacked you and you slowly slipped into anger, rage, hopelessness, selfishness, ambition, revenge, pride, … and then whatever else you fell into to relieve your stress at your first failure … faking your victory by play acting (hypocrisy), hiding behind a mask of pride (self-righteousness) or less religious sins: drunkenness, lust, pornography, adultery, drug use, or the utter darkness of self abuse, suicide … and on the list goes.

Is this the kind of rare battle that only professional counselors, ministers or superheroes of the faith encounter? No, I think this is a scene from any of our lives.

Suppose you get a phone call at midnight, and it’s THAT PERSON! Yes, you know who I am talking about—that one you hate. Maybe it’s your neighbor, or a coworker or a relative. That one who is always making your life so hard. Then suddenly without warning they are in real need and they call you, and without warning the battle is on—will you love them or not? They’ve been talking about you, throwing trash in your lawn, stealing from you, gossiping about you, and now they’re calling you in tears and asking for your help. Will you overcome your hatred and love them? It’s a battle. Will the answer be, “You’re getting what you deserve! Good!” BANG—as you slam down the phone, or will you let Christ be Christ through you to their need?

Let’s get right to the critical issue of your victory: What do you need at this moment to overcome and win this battle? You need strength. What strength do you need? Physical strength? Money? Good looks? A successful career? What strength do you really need at this moment to win this battle?

Paul called this strength Grace

This strength we need for this victory is called a funny thing. Paul calls it Grace. The word ‘grace’ or charis has at least four meanings in the New Testament and it’s used about 170 times I think. The frequency of its use, and the various meanings it has, causes this pearl of spiritual treasure to remain a hidden mystery to most people. First ‘grace’ can mean kindness; second it can mean to give something to someone freely without it being deserved or earned; it also can mean the gift given itself. It is this third meaning of ‘grace’ that Paul used to described the empowerment of God to us which has the greatest impact on our struggle to overcome the various trials of this life. In this sense, Grace is Power. Yes, we see that God is kind and gives grace to us for free, but what He gives us is a kind of power that will enable (empower) us to overcome, to be more like Christ so we can win, a strength of heart that enables us to overcome all trials and react in His character. So we can say because of God’s grace he graced us with grace. Or more clearly, because of His kindness, he freely gifted us with his empowering love.

Ultimately Grace is His Love shining from within our earthen vessels; although it may manifest as peace, joy, compassion, etc., it is ultimately love, a strength, an emotional strength, but not one coming from our own human souls—and it is this love that never fails.

Some Key Verses

But let’s now look at some verses. Hebrews 13:9 Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by ceremonial foods, which are of no value to those who eat them. So Grace strengthens our hearts when we receive it.

1 Corinthians 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. So Grace made Paul what he was, and was the energy in him causing him to work so effectively and tirelessly. Paul often talks about Grace in this way as being ‘with’ him, ‘in’ him or ‘given to’ him.

2 Corinthians 9:8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. What do you need to do EVERY good work? Patience, joy, peace, gentleness, Love … in measure beyond the normal limits of human emotions. This empowering actually includes ALL that you need, yes it includes finances, skills, and other material things, but the primary strength you need is not material … it is his supernatural love.

2 Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. Paul asked for his painful circumstance (the thorn in his flesh) to be removed but God decided instead to leave it there but make Paul stronger.

The strongest link between lacking Grace and so failing a battle where being like Christ in character is needed is Hebrews 12:15, See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. This is a major insight. Key words here are: Missing the grace, allowing a root of bitterness to grow, many are defiled.

There are many other key verses about Grace being the source of our spiritual and personal gifts, about grace being ministered to other people when we use these gifts, and grace being the transforming power that causes us to resemble Christ more and more each day.

Grace is given to the Humble

Then we can read James 4:1-12 and learn a lot. James is pulling no punches, not making it easy to avoid the issue.

James 4:1-12, ¹What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? ²You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. ³When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. ⁴You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. ⁵Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? ⁶But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” ⁷Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.⁸Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. ¹¹Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. ¹²There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?

Here we see God’s provision for our temptations is more grace to overcome these challenges. Grace is however only given to the Humble. Also we see that if we but resist the devil, he will flee, not because there is anything from our resistance that he is afraid of, but because our WILL is energized by God’s POWER in us, literally God’s presence or Spirit in us, and THAT drives the enemy away. Our Will, God’s Power.

Where can we get it?
The Throne of Grace

So when we are in a challenge, failing a battle, we need to find HELP, FAST, and that help is given because of Jesus’ priesthood, His sacrifice on our behalf. So we can go to Him and He will help us overcome when we are in a battle.

Hebrews 4:16, Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence (boldness), so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. We find that we may need to repent first to approach Him with confidence, but when we do, we are guaranteed to be strengthened, and so our victory is assured. If Christ won the battle, then we can receive the same overcoming empowerment. We can actually live out His victory.

The room in my spirit being filled

Personally, how I first learned this, was when I had a vision of an angel after being prayed for one time. The angel said the Father wanted to talk with me in heaven, but after a few minutes when nothing apparently happened, I asked him when I was going, and he said I was already there. I got upset because I was not able to sense anything of the conversation or visit. I complained that I really was ready to go to see heaven, but I immediately heard a voice, of the Lord or the angel, who said, “No you’re not!” and I was shown my spiritual insides—it was a hollow space being slowly filled with layer upon layer of some substance like pearlescent paint or amethyst-like mineral. I understood from 1 Corinthians 8:1-3 that knowledge puffs up (makes a hollow space inside of us) but the experience of God’s love fills up that space, literally, builds us up. I had knowledge and so had a hollow, open space that could now be filled, but this strange substance from God was filling me very slowly and I was still mostly hollow. Knowledge comes first like a road map as we HEAR, but then if we diligently desire and seek to DO what we have heard, and live the Experience of what the Bible talks about, God fills us up with a substance from Him, and as we receive more of His Life into us, we are transformed as we are built up in Love. This substance is HIM. It is His Spirit. And I didn’t understand it at the time, or have any verses about it, but I knew somehow that it was called ‘grace.’

We have literal access to the Throne of Grace

Secondly, and only recently, I was in prayer and God said for me to rest, but I know I can sleep for 12 hours and wake up tired because it’s not physical rest I need but spiritual strength. So I was soaking, trying to get His impartation of strength and I felt myself go to a large open space in the spiritual realm and the Lord was there and He said, “This is the Throne … of Grace.” And that it was where we go to get our transforming and empowering strength. We’ve all been there if we’ve asked God for strength during prayer, but at first our eyes are closed to its reality and we don’t see it. But now that we understand, we can seek to go there boldly, and get built up more quickly and more consciously.

Flesh vs Grace, how to mature?

Galatians 3 through 5 talks about the difference between trying to live a life that pleases God in our own flesh, our own efforts, our own righteousness, as opposed to doing it by God’s Spirit, by faith, by His Grace. Trying to perfect yourself in your own efforts is futile. You need to labor, yes, but we labor to enter ‘the rest,’ not labor to perfect ourselves in our own efforts. (Hebrews 4) We need to be diligent, and exercise our WILL, but we don’t have the POWER in and of ourselves to become HOLY; holiness is not produced by good behavior. It is a spiritual quality only God possesses. He can give it to us, but we can’t manufacture it on our own.

Being ‘good’ to earn grace?
No. Grace so you can be ‘good’

There are many benefits to behaving and being ‘good.’ It is easier to commune with God because we have less baggage, fewer bondages, fewer addictions, etc., but if we think our goodness is equal to His holiness, we are mistaken and will fall into a trap called “self made righteousness.” Self righteousness is not righteousness but a human standard of good behavior; yet we know none are ‘good’ in an absolute moral sense (only God is) so what value is human goodness? Well, we can brag to other humans, we can be prideful about it or make others feel less ‘good’ than we are, but it is of no real value to our salvation or to the receiving of real holiness, or the spiritual power of Grace. Real holiness only comes from God and can be given to you, but you can’t earn it, buy it, demand it or force God to give it to you. Galatians 5 talks about this divide. If you are trying to be good enough to perfect yourself in God’s eyes, Christ’s cross has lost its power for you, Christ is no longer of any value to you, and you have become ‘cut off’—alienated from Him; fallen from grace. (Gal 5:4). The energy behind your own self efforts is only good at producing envy, ambition, discord, pride, and the list gets worse. But if you seek your salvation and ongoing maturing towards perfection through Jesus, by HIS power, by your trust in Him, not by your own ‘goodness,’ then the effect of His Spirit, the grace of God, the fruit of Him abiding in you will be given to you to enjoy, which fruit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. We get this fruit by grace through faith, not by earning it by our ‘good works.’ In fact to think that we can earn these things by our good deeds is silly. We need these things to do the good deeds that please the Lord; the Lord does not give us these things because we have been good after the fact.

By grace He graced us with His empowering Grace

So again, Grace can mean several things. If we are given something BY GRACE it can mean it is given to us because of His Kindness. ‘By Grace’ also means something is given as a free gift that can’t be earned and is not deserved. Grace is also the gift given, in the most important case, it is the gift of power or the strength of His character given to us to overcome the struggles of life. His grace comes to you as a kind of fruit (result) of His Presence (His Spirit) that makes us godly, more like Him, able to act more like Jesus, not by forcing yourself to appear patient or kind, but from an authentic truth of your deepest heart’s desire.  The fruit of the spirit are not earned, deserved or self manufactured, not produced by your own efforts at being extra good. They come as natural fruit of a real relationship with God in Spirit and in Truth. It is by faith, by a free gift.

HOW do we get it?

So what can we do practically about this? We have access to this place in the heavenly realm called the Throne of Grace. We can go there, not in our bodies, but in our spirits. HOW do we go somewhere in the spirit like this? How? Just want to. The wanting is the ‘how.’ Let me explain. The Bible says many things like, “clothe yourself with humility” but does not tell you how. It says seek first the Kingdom, but does not tell you how. It says to resist the devil but does not tell you how. And there is a reason for that … there is no “how.”

The spiritual realm is unlike the natural, physical realm in many ways. One of these ways is HOW things are done. In a natural case, we need to move ourselves physically, but in the spiritual case, we simply DESIRE to go or do it, and it already happens in the spiritual.

For example, Jesus said the Law found a person guilty if they committed adultery but in fact the Lord will hold us guilty if we DESIRE someone in a sexually immoral way. Matthew 5:27-28 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

We see the secret motives of our hearts are going to be judged and this will have eternal significance, since our standing in the spiritual reality is a matter of our hearts more than anything.

That may be an oversimplification of some things, but that is basically what a believer needs to do in this case—if you want to visit the Throne of Grace, since Jesus has opened the door to all believers by his sacrifice, it is now only a question of your desire, it is just a matter of your confidence and willingness (basically your faith). Romans 5:2 ...through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

So we don’t need to walk or fly, we can just desire to go to the Throne of Grace. We don’t need x-ray vision, or a telescope, we can simply ask God to open the eyes of our hearts (our spirits). We don’t need to be extra good to go there, or extra deserving. In fact we are allowed to go there because we are in need, failing the test, losing the battle of patience, kindness, humility, love, peace, gentleness…. That’s when our access to this Throne of Empowerment is open widest to us because that’s when we need it the most!

Go there not bodily,
but in spirit during prayer

We have access because of Christ’s sacrifice, so let’s (spiritually) go to the Throne of Grace right now. Let’s close our physical eyes, ask the Lord to open our spiritual eyes, and fix our hearts on Jesus, and ask Him to bring us to the Throne of Grace—or if you have faith already, just desire to go there directly; you have already been invited. You may want to pray first to ask the Lord to protect you and guide you, or maybe at first you want to do this with some other believers at Church, or before you go to bed after you read the Bible and mediate on the Word. You need to worship God in spirit, but there are many spiritual forces active on the earth, some of them are deceivers. We do not cut off all spiritual activity for fear of the deception, for that would be like not eating food for fear of poison, or not talking to anyone for fear of being lied to. We already live in a spiritual world, but we do need to protect ourselves, and test every spiritual experience carefully. Having said that, the name of Jesus is so powerful that rebuking false spirits and earnestly asking the Lord to lead you and guide you is very effective. But if you feel uncomfortable, read the bible more, pray more and even fast a little to get God’s personal help. You can get God’s Grace even without experiencing the Throne, so don’t let that be a stumbling block. But when you are ready for deeper things, go ahead and pay the Lord a visit, you’ll be glad you did.

Write down what God shows you

When you finally do connect with the Lord, spirit to Spirit, it is very helpful to keep a written journal—not a journal of your prayers to Him, but a journal of His words to you. When you visit His Throne, or just spend time talking with Him, spirit to Spirit, you can easily forget what He tells you. He communicates to your spirit, not your physical brain, and so without writing down what He says and shows to you, you can quickly forget or remember things incorrectly, especially after a month or more. It’s better to write it all down as it happens. So as you quiet yourself down to pray, listening and watching with your spiritual eyes and ears more than speaking with your physical mouth, pay attention to what you see with your heart (which at first might seem like you are imagining things, only you will feel the presence of the Holy Spirit telling you it’s not just your imagination). God speaks all languages, but very often He speaks to us is a symbolic language of images, whether in our dreams or in visions.

So watch what you observe in your heart, listen to what He tells you, write down what is going on so you can test it later and share it with a trusted spiritual mentor if you have any questions, but most of all more than information you want to just SOAK IN HIS EMPOWERING GRACE to give you all that you need to do every good work.

And do feel free to share with others what the Lord shows you. Never to brag, but only to encourage others to have faith to approach His Throne boldly so they too can receive Mercy and Grace from Him in their times of need. Your testimony is important because it will help lead others into the experience of God’s goodness for themselves. Just be careful to do so in humility. And if you need more strength to be humble in sharing, you know where to go!

Grace and Peace to you through personally knowing Jesus!

Key Grace Verses

Hebrews 13:9 Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by ceremonial foods, which are of no value to those who eat them.

1 Corinthians 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.

2 Corinthians 9:8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

2 Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

Hebrews 12:15 See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

James 4:6-7 ⁶But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” ⁷Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Hebrews 4:16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence (boldness), so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Romans 5:2 ...through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

Edward Johnson • This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it