Grace Does It!

Why did Paul, Peter, John and the other New Testament writers write so much about grace? Why is grace so important?

First, only grace can bring forgiveness of sin.

Galatians 2:15-16

We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law.

Forgiveness of sin or justification does not come by doing what the law says. The reason it does not is because the works of the law would have to be done perfectly all the time. You cannot do most of the law or do works of the law most of the time. You have to obey the law 100% and do it 100% of the time, in other words perfection.

Zechariah 4:6

“Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit,” says the Lord of Hosts.

Forgiveness of sin does not come by any form of human effort. We are born with a nature or tendency to sin. We need a change of nature to enable us to not give in to the temptation to disobey God. The change comes because of God’s grace through Jesus ignited by faith.

The law or human effort cannot bring forgiveness of sin, only grace can.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is depending on grace to bring forgiveness of sin.

Second, grace is what makes us righteous with the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:21

For our sake He made Him sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

We are not born righteous so we have to be transformed into righteousness. Jesus was completely righteous because He never sinned. He never did anything that was not the Father’s will. Through Jesus’s death on the cross, He made His righteousness available to us. It is God’s grace that makes Jesus’ righteousness available to us and faith that makes it the reality of our lives.

Only the grace of God through Jesus makes us righteous.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is receiving God’s righteousness through grace by Jesus’ death on the cross.

Third, it is grace that gives us the desire to do God’s will and the power to do it.

Philippians 2:13

For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill His good purpose.

My natural desire is to do my will. Grace changes my mind and thus my desire to do God’s will. Grace also gives the empowering to do God’s will.

In Acts 1:8 God sends the Holy Spirit to His people. The Holy Spirit comes by the grace of God. The Holy Spirit brings desire and power by grace.

Grace gives desire and empowering to do God’s will.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is desiring what God desires and being empowered to do what pleases God by grace.

Fourth, only by grace can we really come to know God and have a love relationship with Him through Jesus.

Luke 10:22

All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Sons chooses to reveal Him.

Knowing the Father is not discovered; knowing the Father is revealed to us by the grace of the Jesus.

We are finite beings, God is infinite. We don’t have the mental or spiritual ability to know or understand God without His grace revealing that truth to us.

Grace allows us by God’s revelation to know Him and to have an intimate relationship with Him. 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Wall is by grace experiencing the person, power, and love of God daily.

By Grace Raising the Roof and Remove the Walls,

                                        Joe