Grace and faith are both important in our lives, but it’s imperative not to go overboard in either direction. The religious definitions of grace and faith we’ve learned may have been taught to us wrong; some churches teach exclusively about faith, while others focus solely on grace. However, anything in the extreme will lead us into error. To achieve any level of success in our lives, we need a balance between both.
Overemphasizing grace produces a passive, lazy Christian who thinks God is in control of everything—even the bad things that happen. Overemphasizing faith produces a legalistic Christian who thinks that their actions will make God do something for them. For us to see His manifestations, faith must be the foundation for our works. Faith without works is dead; genuine belief results in our good works.
By His grace, God’s divine power has given us all things pertaining to life and godliness; faith takes possession of them. Grace promises us healing, deliverance, prosperity, peace, joy, and victory over problems; our faith positions us to receive those promises. Inheriting the promise is the outcome of faith, and depends entirely on faith, so that it might be given by an act of unmerited favor. Our belief in this gives us access to His grace.
Faith and grace always go together. Faith is our positive response to what grace has done. We’re saved by grace through faith. Our salvation isn’t because of anything we do; it’s a gift from God.
The finished works of Jesus Christ give our belief power. Believing is certainly important, but faith is ineffective outside the context of grace. We won’t see any results if we leave either one out of the equation. Combining them correctly gives us the ability to move mountains.
Prayer:
Lord, You showed us grace through Your Son, who made available to us everything we need in life. You also taught us how to position ourselves to receive what we need through our faith in what He did. We’re grateful for this. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Scriptures:
James 2:26
2 Peter 1:3
Romans 4:16, AMPC
Romans 5:2
Ephesians 2:8
Matthew 17:20