On Grace

“Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and underserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and eternal life,” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1996).

I think of grace as a place. It’s that place where in spite of me I am accepted exactly as I am. If there is one thing I’ve learned it is that God holds an abundant amount of grace for me. I come to God exactly as I am when I don’t have the ability to change on my own - and God accepts me anyway. I’ve often heard others state that they want to change their lives before coming to Christ and that’s not necessary at all! God knows exactly where we are at. He knows about our ungraceful secrets and behaviors. God’s grace wants us to call of him exactly as we are: broken and sinful.

“The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal lit of sin and to sanctify it. It is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism. It is in us the source of the work of sanctification:

Therefore if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold the new has come. All this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to Himself,” (CCC 1999).

It is in God’s grace that we change our ways. It is through His love and grace that we grow into fruitful Christians. This grace allows us to give to others the way has God has given to us.

“Grace is first and foremost the gift of the Spirit who justifies and sanctifies us. But grace also includes the gifts that the Spirit grants us to associate us with his work, to enable us to collaborate in the salvation of others and in the growth of the Body of Christ, the Church...“(CCC 2003).

True grace can only be known in Christ. We hold grace towards one another and our ministry as a gift of the Holy Spirit. Grace begins as a welcoming extension of God, and in obedience is formed into a work of the Holy Spirit through our acceptance of God’s will. This type of grace is only known through faith - an acceptance of God in our life and works that follow.

“Since it belongs to the supernatural order, grace escapes our experience and cannot be known except by faith. We cannot therefore rely on our feelings or our works to conclude that we are justified and saved. However according to the Lord’s words - “Thus you will know them by their fruits” - reflection on Gods’s blessings in our life and in the lives of the saints offers us a guarantee that grace is at work in us and offers us a guarantee that grace is at work in us and spurs us on to an even greater faith and an attitude of trustful poverty...” (CCC 2005)

I like to think that I reside in grace. God knows exactly where I am and sends all of the necessary elements and people into my life that will help to form who He wants me to be. The best part is that grace is non-judgmental. God accepts and affirms us just like we should others.

“For a sun and shield is the Lord God, bestowing all grace and glory. The Lord withholds no good thing from those who walk without reproach,” (Psalm 84:12)