The Power Of His Grace

The Power Of His Grace

Wanting to be righteous is most likely something everyone aspires to, whether they admit it or not. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it, although many people have a backward idea of how to achieve that particular state of being. Some people equate being righteous with being arrogant, but that’s the world’s view. Scripturally, righteousness is a byproduct of getting right with God, which comes from believing in the finished works of Jesus.

Righteousness doesn’t come from any actions we could take or any philosophy we could study. We don’t achieve it by serving God, although that is something we choose to do when we begin living according to the Scriptures. Righteousness comes through our faith in Jesus. “I have complete confidence in the gospel; it is God’s power to save all who believe, first the Jews and also the Gentiles. For the gospel reveals how God puts people right with himself: it is through faith from beginning to end. As the scripture says, ‘The person who is put right with God through faith shall live’” (Romans 1:16, 17, GNT).

Jesus is Grace personified, and when we accept what He did for us on the cross, we begin to change from the inside out. In the Old Testament, the Law required that the priests continually work to atone for the people’s sin. The perfect sacrifice Jesus made once and for all abolished the need for us to work to achieve righteousness. All we really need to do is believe in God’s favor toward us. (Romans 4:1-8).

We really begin to experience God’s true nature when we read and meditate on the Scriptures and recognize how they relate to our lives. The power found in the Gospel is real, and no power on earth can ever come close to matching it. What the world will never understand is when we accept Jesus, we gain a new identity in Christ and we become God’s beloved, holy, and righteous children. “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26).

As we deepen our relationship with Him, we’ll notice that the power of sin that once so cruelly ruled our lives is getting steadily weaker, replaced by the desire to do God’s will. This is accompanied by a multitude of gifts God has for us, including eternal life, abundant peace, prosperity, healing, deliverance, happiness, and joy. We could never earn the right to receive these gifts on our own, but believing in what Jesus’ death and resurrection made available to us more than two thousand years ago connects us to them.

On a personal level, that means we no longer have to be haunted by shame over past mistakes, guilt over our failures, or pain from broken relationships. The average person has a tendency to dwell on, and beat themselves up over, something that may have happened years or even decades ago. When we turn over all that mess to God, the devil loses the ability to use it to make our lives miserable! “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).

Grace wants to infuse our lives with such joy and power that we know for certain that it’s God at work. He gives us the peace of mind knowing that our salvation is through Him, and not from anything we do. The promise of true freedom through Him remains unchanged (Psalm 119:45; Romans 6:22).