Often you hear people respond when you ask them how they are doing that “they are fine by the Grace of God”. We frequently hear expressions like “more grace” whenever people want to wish you well on something. But did you know that the mere wish of “more grace” does not mean the grace on your life will increase? Is it possible to increase the grace on your life? By what means can you do this? How can you multiply the grace that is on your life?
Before I tackle this I want to first establish what Grace is. It will surprise you to know that while we talk about Grace and pray for more of it, many people have not bothered to find out what Grace is. How do we pray so much for something we don’t understand? Since we talk about grace so much in church most people assume they understand. I will present a simple explanation of Grace and establish its twofold applications.
First, Grace is commonly understood as God’s unmerited favour. For God to kindly grant us what we do not deserve is seen as his Grace. The climax of God’s grace is seen in salvation offered to the world through Jesus. Humanity through sin fell from glory to the realm of death. As a consequence we deserved to be cut off from God and wallow in death. Yet, God showed us Grace (undeserved favour), by sending Jesus to satisfy the claim of justice on behalf of humanity to make it possible for men to enter the realm of Glory with God again. The bible says in Romans 5:8 ……. while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. God graciously did for us what we did not deserve and could not have done. Ephesians 2:8 also says For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. So we see that the Grace of God manifests in two ways: giving us what we do not deserve, and doing for us what we could not do. We deserved to die, God intervened. We could not have paid for our sins, God did. In your personal walk with God, Grace will accomplish these two primary things in your life: surprising you with something you may not deserve, or helping you accomplish what ordinarily you could not do.
This brings me to the second application of Grace which is the supply of ability to be able to do something. Not only does Grace give you things you do not deserve or does something you couldn’t do for yourself, Grace also supplies ability to do something you ordinarily couldn’t have done on your own. Most of us stop at the first application of Grace but the work of Grace is incomplete without the second application. Mostly Grace gives you undeserved favour and continues to give you ability to be able to do something. For example Grace saved us from sin and empowers us to live above sin. Titus 2:11-12 says 11For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age. The work of Grace is incomplete if we are merely saved from past sins and unable to break free from it. So we see that Grace saves us and trains us to live above sin from the above scripture. Practically if Grace granted you admission to school, Grace will supply you with the ability to sail through school. The Apostle Paul received Grace (undeserved favour to be an Apostle), and (ability) to perform that role, But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me (1 Cor 15:10).
Most Christians think Grace is a lazy way of asking for something and just wishing something would drop on them. They think that Grace is when you refuse to work and people keep giving you money every day or when you don’t till your farm and yet it produces a bountiful harvest, or when you don’t study hard and yet you get multiple A’s miraculously in your exams. Grace is actually a call for responsibility. It is God giving you underserved favour to enable you do what you could not do. If you do not take advantage of the ability supplied by Grace to do what you are supposed to do, the unmerited favour received will be of no effect. Let’s say you owe so much that you use most of your income to settle debts. You are therefore unable to save money for some projects. Grace comes to the scene and somehow your debts are cancelled or someone steps in to pay your debts. This gesture of Grace is to allow you to be able to save to do your projects because now you wouldn’t be settling debts with your income anymore. Someone, upon seeing that his debts are paid, would increase his expenditure instead with the money he should have saved or start fresh borrowing. This attitude will unfortunately nullify the work of Grace.
Henceforth, when you pray for Grace for something, make sure you are ready to take responsibility for what you are asking for. Grace for teaching means that you should be ready to study more. If you seek Grace in the area of work you should make up your mind to deliver above expectation. Grace for marriage means ability to keep a home not opportunity to fall in love.
Having set this foundation, I will tackle “How to increase the Grace upon your life” in my next post.
Shalom
SINCERELY
EMMANUEL OPOKU AGYEMANG
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
REV. DR. ERIC OWUSU BARNIE
THE NETWORK OF REVIVALISTS 
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