Grace

 "Grace"

...besides being a lovely girl's name - is a word that gets thrown around in church circles quite a bit.
Even though the church is full of human beings like myself, which brings all sorts of  ups and downs; there is one thing I am very, very grateful for is being taught by my church - and that is - God's 'grace' to us in Jesus.

So what actually is this word "Grace" in the context of the Bible?

A quick seach engine look comes up with the normal understanding used in the world:

Grace: Noun Simple elegance or refinement of movement.

Grace: Verb Do honor or credit to (someone or something) by one's presence."

However, the Christian theological version has more of an 'old world' feel to it but is worth trying to grasp...I actually think the first paragraph of good ol' wikipedia does it justice:

"...grace has been defined as "the love and mercy given to us by God because God desires us to have it, not because of anything we have done to earn it", "the condescension or benevolence shown by God toward the human race". It is understood by Christians to be a spontaneous gift from God to man - "generous, free and totally unexpected and undeserved" - that takes the form of divine favor, love and clemency."

Basically, don't bother trying to suck up to God because it won't work - he sees into our hearts with all our hopes, dreams, disappointments, hurts, joys, hurtful thoughts, scheming, lusts, darkness and so on...instead...in spite of whatever goes on in our hearts and heads - he reaches out to us with his love for us.

Romans 5: 6-8 tells us about this in a nutshell:
^"6 Christ died for us at a time when we were helpless and sinful. ⁷ No one is really willing to die for an honest person, though someone might be willing to die for a truly good person. ⁸ But God showed how much he loved us by having Christ die for us, even though we were sinful."

The world at large often gets the impression that we Christians spend our time 'being good' for some sort of brownie point system. A good understanding of God's Grace puts that to rest: don't bother- God sees our heart motivations and has chosen to love us anyway. Neither does it mean we do what we want - see Romans 6

Our 'doing good' is a 'relational' issue with God now - not a point scoring exercise.
We do what we know God wants done in this world. This is not unusual - with your own friends or your partner - don't you make a point of doing what makes them happy when you are with them??
If you are 'point scoring' with your friends -then they are not really your friends. The same is true with God. He has told us he loves us, forgives us and gives us his 'Grace'...we are in a relationship with him and we live and learn what is his Will for us. It's a no brainer, really. We are in a good relationship with him - why ruin it?

There is a lot to be said about God's grace but it is good news for any person living on this planet who wishes to be at peace with their Maker.