By Pastor John Culbertson

God’s grace is poured out for all of us and it’s available, yet I’ve had people say to me sometimes, “You don’t know everything that I’ve done.  I’ve sinned.  I don’t deserve any grace.”  You’re right!  You don’t deserve it.  But then, none of us deserve it.

I don’t care how good you think you’ve lived or how hard you’ve tried – I don’t care if you’ve done everything that the law demanded – you still don’t deserve grace.

The Good News is, whether we think we deserve grace or not, God gives it.  Amazing!  Romans 5:20 says, “But when sin abounded, grace abounded much more.”  The word “much” means “to abound beyond measure and overflow.”  No matter what you’ve done, God’s grace is overflowing and covering that like a flood comes in and wipes everything clean.

In this series, we’re talking about how God’s grace is relentless.  I love the definition of the word relentless:

Merriam Webster’s dictionary define it as “showing or promising no abatement of severity, intensity, strength, or pace.” It’s not slowing down; its intensity, strength and pace has not changed and will not change.  Oxford Dictionary says relentless means “incessant.”  That means it continues without pause or interruption.

GOD’S GRACE IS INCESSANT, CONTINUING WITHOUT PAUSE OR INTERRUPTION.

God’s grace never decreases or increases because it’s always pouring out at full capacity.  Grace’s relentlessness is amazing and awesome; it’s a consistent gift we must hear about and understand.  Why?  Look at the key verse of this series, Ephesians 2:8:  “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.”

We have to access God’s grace by faith; but, even the faith we need to receive God’s grace is a gift!  We received one gift so that we can receive the next gift!  That’s good, because on our own, we don’t have the faith to get grace; we have to have His faith.  This is important because faith in God’s grace has to be released to receive what God has provided through Christ.  How do we do that?  How do we know what God’s given us?  We get into the Word of God.  Romans 10:17 reminds us, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

In the past, I’ve always looked at Romans 10:17 and put focus on the word “faith”; but, my focus has shifted to the question, “What have I been hearing?”

Hearing talks about the grace of God; I have to hear what is provided so that I can then apply my faith.  See, if you’re only looking at your faith but not looking at grace to know how to apply it, you’re shooting at nothing…there’s no target for your faith and it’s wasted and powerless.

“It is clear then that faith’s source is found in the content of the message heard; the message is Christ.” – ROMANS 10:17 (MIRROR BIBLE)

The message is Christ.  It’s what Peter preached on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) and throughout the book of Acts.  It’s what Stephen preached about (Acts 7).  The message is Christ and Him crucified.  The Good News of God’s grace is that everything that was supposed to be accomplished on the Cross was.

“The Good News of God’s grace is that everything that was supposed to be accomplished on the Cross was.”

It was 100% success; nothing was lacking, nothing left undone.  At the Cross, Jesus said, “It is finished.”  It is complete.  Salvation is done…all of it.  Consequently, we can walk in freedom and tell others about the freedom we experience in Christ.  Mankind will never again be judged by a set of moral laws or rules.  The only thing a person will ever be judged for is if they received Jesus.

If you go back into Genesis and read about creation, you’ll see that God didn’t create man on the first day.  If He had, man would have had to tread water, hide and not know what was going on while the chaos of creation occurred (imagine trees and land bursting up all around you)!  Instead, God waited until everything was complete and perfect before receiving Man, the crowning jewel of creation.

You’re that new creation.

If you’ve received Jesus, ask yourself this: Why would He not provide for you everything you need to live successfully and victoriously?  The Good News is that He has…will you walk in that truth?  It’s up to us to believe; it’s up to us to walk in it.  Everything that Christ set out to accomplish on the Cross, He did…and all of that is provided by grace.

Our last series talked about our New Identity.  Our identity is found in Jesus…not next to Him but in Him.  It’s not like Jesus is seated at the Father’s right hand and then we sit next to him and others next to us in some huge line.  So, the power that Jesus had while He walked on this earth we have because we’re in Him.  We have 100% access to it because we’re in Him.

Some people are trying to convince themselves of who they are by how they think God sees them, but God’s trying to convince you of who you are by how He truly sees you.  He sees you totally different than many people think.  God is trying to persuade everyone to believe what He knows to be true about them.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” – 2 CORINTHIANS 5:17 (NKJV)

You don’t have the power in yourself to make yourself a new creation.  No matter how hard you try to discipline yourself, work out, or change all your habits, you cannot recreate yourself.  But God, in an instant, can recreate you into Who He is.  You become just like Jesus in your spirit; your old spirit dies and is risen from the dead new and 100% improved to be just like Jesus.

If there’s molecules in the spirit, molecule-for-molecule you’re just like Jesus in your spirit.

This is the undeserved gift that God has freely given us.  We have to access it by faith.