What Is Grace, Really? Understanding the Unmerited Favor of God

Grace is one of those words we toss around in the church so often that sometimes we stop feeling the weight of it. We sing about it, pray with it, tag it at the end of sermons, and yet many still don’t understand what grace really is.

Grace isn’t just a soft, comforting idea or a spiritual safety net. Grace is the very heartbeat of the Gospel. Without grace, we have nothing. With grace, we have everything, even when we deserve nothing at all.

Grace Defined: More Than a Concept
Let’s get to the core of it: grace is the unearned, undeserved, unmerited favor of God. It’s God giving us what we could never earn on our own. Not because of who we are, but because of who He is.

The Apostle Paul lays it out clearly in Ephesians 2:8–9 (LSB):

“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, so that no one may boast.”

Salvation is a gift. You don’t work for a gift. You receive it. And that’s where grace begins, it’s God’s initiative, not ours. If we could earn it, it wouldn’t be grace anymore. It would be a paycheck.

Some people mistake grace for God looking the other way, like He’s saying, “I know you messed up, but it’s fine.” That’s not grace. That’s compromise, and God never compromises His holiness.

Grace doesn’t ignore sin; it confronts it head-on at the cross. Grace acknowledges the full weight of our guilt and then says, “Jesus paid for that.” The debt was real, but Jesus really paid it in full. That’s grace.

The Problem with Earned Religion
Most of us were raised in a culture that says, “You get what you deserve.” Work hard, earn your keep, make your way. And that mindset bleeds into how we approach God. We try to be good enough. Clean enough. Religious enough. But grace says, “You’ll never be enough, but Jesus is.”

That’s offensive to the self-righteous. It humbles the proud. It wrecks the idea that we can perform our way into heaven. Grace crushes our pride and raises us up with Christ, not because we’ve behaved, but because we’ve believed.

Why Grace Changes Everything
Grace rewires how we see ourselves. We’re no longer slaves trying to earn favor; we’re sons and daughters who’ve already received it. Grace gives rest to the anxious. Hope to the sinner. Strength to the weary.

And here’s the thing: once you truly receive grace, you can’t help but give it. Grace people are forgiving people. Merciful people. Joyful people. Because they know what they’ve received and they want the world to experience it too.

So What Do We Do With This?
If you’ve been trying to earn your way into God’s good graces, stop. Lay it down. You don’t have to perform your way into His love. It’s already been given through the blood of Jesus. All that’s left to do is receive.

And if you’ve already received it, live like it. Rest in it. Grow in it. Extend it. Grace isn’t the starting line of your faith; it’s the entire race.

Stay tuned for Part 2: “Grace in the Garden: The First Act of Redemption.”
Because grace didn’t start in the Gospels, it’s been part of the story from the beginning.

In Love,

Pastor Jody