Training Grace
“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age…”—Titus 2:11-12
Grace is hard to define without doing damage to it, as one author has explained. He said that defining grace is a bit like dissecting a frog, we may learn a lot but the patient is killed in the process. We can look at definitions, but definitions don’t reveal how grace applies to our every day lives or show the indelible reality of how grace transforms us. But, just for clarity, let’s look at the definition of grace: Grace is an unmerited gift. There. That’s it. It’s so simple, yet so earth-shatteringly profound. It is God’s gift to us. Salvation is God’s gift to us, which we call “saving grace.” As the apostle Paul explained it, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast”—Ephesians 2:8-9.
It is the gift of salvation made available to us, based entirely on what Jesus Christ did on the cross for your sins and mine. I didn’t do anything to earn it—and if I did, it would cease to be grace. Grace is different from mercy—grace is God giving us what we don’t deserve, while mercy is God’s withholding from us what we do deserve. Or as Phillip Yancey explained grace: “It’s knowing that God will never love you anymore, and that He will not love you any less”—Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace?
But there is another aspect to grace. It is what I like to call “training grace.” It is the understanding of how we are to live life after we have received salvation. It is the appropriation in our hearts and minds of what grace is and what grace does. This is what Paul meant when he wrote, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age…”
Grace is God’s unmerited gift to us. And grace enables us to know and understand that no matter what we do, as long as we continue trusting in Him by faith, He will forgive us. And once we know that no matter what, God will continue to love us, we are able to say “no” to sin and “yes” to God, as Paul wrote, “For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace”—Romans 6:14.
Grace trains us by continually allowing us to start over in repentance, by reminding us that God already showed the extent of His love in Christ’s death on the cross. Grace sets us free from sin, free from self-effort, free from trying to ever gain God’s favor. Grace sets us free from “daisy” theology—where we continue to pluck the petals of our salvation and say, “He loves me,” “He loves me not.” When we do well we feel like God loves us, and when we do bad we feel like He doesn’t. But the reality is, as Yancey said, “Grace is the understanding that God will not love you any more and that God will never love you any less.” Grace frees us from “daisy” theology.
Grace helps us understand that we can’t do anything to procure our salvation, but grace also helps us know that our responsibility is to live trusting and believing in that fact. It doesn’t matter how much we sin, God’s grace has covered it. Which is why Paul could write,
“Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”—Romans 5:20-21.
Once we understand that the card of grace always trumps the card of sin, we are relieved of self-effort and able to live in the strength God supplies. We don’t need to worry about gaining God’s approval by our acts of righteousness—we already have it in Christ!
Beloved, I hope and pray that God may enable us all to live in training grace—because it is the grace that frees and secures us in God’s salvation. It’s not dependent upon us, but on God who gave His greatest gift in His Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is through Him that we have been set free. And it is through Him and His death on the cross we have security. And may we continually live in the good news that, “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more”—Romans 5:20. Amen.
Grace is hard to define without doing damage to it, as one author has explained. He said that defining grace is a bit like dissecting a frog, we may learn a lot but the patient is killed in the process. We can look at definitions, but definitions don’t reveal how grace applies to our every day lives or show the indelible reality of how grace transforms us. But, just for clarity, let’s look at the definition of grace: Grace is an unmerited gift. There. That’s it. It’s so simple, yet so earth-shatteringly profound. It is God’s gift to us. Salvation is God’s gift to us, which we call “saving grace.” As the apostle Paul explained it, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast”—Ephesians 2:8-9.
It is the gift of salvation made available to us, based entirely on what Jesus Christ did on the cross for your sins and mine. I didn’t do anything to earn it—and if I did, it would cease to be grace. Grace is different from mercy—grace is God giving us what we don’t deserve, while mercy is God’s withholding from us what we do deserve. Or as Phillip Yancey explained grace: “It’s knowing that God will never love you anymore, and that He will not love you any less”—Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace?
But there is another aspect to grace. It is what I like to call “training grace.” It is the understanding of how we are to live life after we have received salvation. It is the appropriation in our hearts and minds of what grace is and what grace does. This is what Paul meant when he wrote, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age…”
Grace is God’s unmerited gift to us. And grace enables us to know and understand that no matter what we do, as long as we continue trusting in Him by faith, He will forgive us. And once we know that no matter what, God will continue to love us, we are able to say “no” to sin and “yes” to God, as Paul wrote, “For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace”—Romans 6:14.
Grace trains us by continually allowing us to start over in repentance, by reminding us that God already showed the extent of His love in Christ’s death on the cross. Grace sets us free from sin, free from self-effort, free from trying to ever gain God’s favor. Grace sets us free from “daisy” theology—where we continue to pluck the petals of our salvation and say, “He loves me,” “He loves me not.” When we do well we feel like God loves us, and when we do bad we feel like He doesn’t. But the reality is, as Yancey said, “Grace is the understanding that God will not love you any more and that God will never love you any less.” Grace frees us from “daisy” theology.
Grace helps us understand that we can’t do anything to procure our salvation, but grace also helps us know that our responsibility is to live trusting and believing in that fact. It doesn’t matter how much we sin, God’s grace has covered it. Which is why Paul could write,
“Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”—Romans 5:20-21.
Once we understand that the card of grace always trumps the card of sin, we are relieved of self-effort and able to live in the strength God supplies. We don’t need to worry about gaining God’s approval by our acts of righteousness—we already have it in Christ!
Beloved, I hope and pray that God may enable us all to live in training grace—because it is the grace that frees and secures us in God’s salvation. It’s not dependent upon us, but on God who gave His greatest gift in His Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is through Him that we have been set free. And it is through Him and His death on the cross we have security. And may we continually live in the good news that, “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more”—Romans 5:20. Amen.
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