What is this Grace that has been given to us?

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness. and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope-the appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what his good.

Titus 2:11-14

God's Grace. It is something that is incredible, in fact so amazing that it is hard for us to comprehend the depth of it. We should be on our knees praising God for his Mercy, Grace, Holiness, and His Justness. Sadly, however, I think we take who God is and His grace so lightly. We sing during worship about how much we love God, and then leave and live our lives in a way that is no different than the world. We might try to get rid of the "big" sins in our lives, but tolerate a certain level of sin in our life because after all "that's why we have God's Grace." Yet doesn't Jesus say in John that "if you love me you will obey what I command." Jesus means exactly what he said; if we are not living in obedience to Jesus' teachings than we do not truly love him. So why do people say that they love God, but live in a way that is contrary to the teachings of his word? I believe that the root cause of this is a misunderstanding of the Grace that God has freely given us.

In Titus chapter 2 Paul describes grace as something that not only forgives us of our sins, but also as something that teaches us how to overcome sin and live in obedience to God. Grace is not something that makes it OK for us to sin. In fact grace is the opposite of that. Jesus calls us to live in obedience to his commands and His grace is what enables us to do that. God gave us his grace so that He may be glorified in our lives not so that we could continue living for ourselves. God calls us to follow him. To follow him means to give up everything we have, completely trust in Him, and do what he wants us to do. To continue in sin even after the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, despite of the fact that we are shown how to overcome it and we are given the strength to overcome it, is showing contempt for grace the Jesus is offering to us. If the Holy Spirit is convicting us of a sin, the question is not whether or not we are capable to overcome it. The question is whether or not we are willing. We have the power of the Holy Spirit living inside us and we know that the power of the Holy Spirit is stronger than the power of sin. So to willfully turn our backs towards God and continue to live in sin is to say to God that we don't want his Grace. We are saying that we don't want the power that he is so gracefully given to us to overcome sin. We are saying that we don't want to accept that grace that could enable us to live in obedience to him and that grace that allows God to be glorified in our lives and instead we are saying that we want to keep living for ourselves, satisfying the desire of the flesh.

So, Grace is not something that makes it OK to sin, it is the thing that God has given us so that we can live in a relationship with him where we are following him and putting a death to our fleshly desires. He gives us his grace so that he can be glorified in out lives and so that he can "purify a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good."