My favorite definition of God’s grace is “un-merited favor”. This kind of grace is a gift that is not deserved, cannot be earned or paid for, and is a credit only to the Giver and never to the recipient.

This is very different from the usual transactions between people and any other god they choose. Usually, the religious follower is trying to appease their god, or bribe him/her/it. Other gods don’t just freely offer something good without expecting anything in return.

Our God does!

Common Grace

It is easy to overlook how much grace God gives all of us every day. Whether we are Christian or atheist, rich or poor, old or young, sick or healthy, life is full of gifts poured out from God. The fancy theological term for this is “common grace”. I’d like to try to write a partial list of these common gracious gifts, and thank Him for them.

The world keeps turning. Days, months, years: the Sun puts out its energy; the earth spins at the proper speed; everything stays in its orbit. Think what would happen if this pattern were broken, or never existed. We get messed up simply by changing clocks twice a year. What if there were no point in clocks because nothing every cycled at a consistent pace? What if some days were 24 hours long, but others were only 2 hours, or lasted 36 hours…and there was no telling how long “today” is going to be?

Weather cycles keep operating. Ocean currents drive trade winds. Their water evaporates into the atmosphere, then condenses to form clouds and rain. That rain soaks the earth, then runs off to fill rivers and streams, ponds and lakes, and back into the ocean to start again. We are expected to worry about climate change of a degree or two over decades. Localized floods and droughts are devastating. What if temperatures and rainfall randomly doubled or halved unpredictably, or the jet stream and trade winds kept changing directions?

Natural laws work. Electricity can be generated, harnessed, and used in a controllable manner. Gravity is the same everywhere, not stronger or weaker from one mile to the next. Without laws of thermodynamics such conservation of energy, inertia and action/reaction, our cars wouldn’t run and our food wouldn’t cook. Without electricity, magnetism and electromagnetic energy, none of our electronic devices would operate. If light didn’t reflect and refract as it does, we wouldn’t have mirrors, eyeglasses or cameras (and we wouldn’t be able to see, either: Our eyes wouldn’t work!)

Biology behaves. We can develop medical treatments because our bodies have a defined “normal” way that the cells interact. Each organ has its job to do, and can be tested to determine if something is not working as it should. We can identify a deficiency, and design a drug to counteract it. If an illness is caused by a virus or bacteria, that “bug” has specific characteristics and weaknesses that provide a way to kill it. Bad as all the auto-immune illnesses are, what if none of us had any immune system at all? What if we couldn’t identify a cancer because there was no standard for non-cancerous cells?

There is beauty in the world. Art, music, dance…All are available for us to enjoy. They can be traced, in part, to specific mathematical proportions like the Fibonacci Sequence and the frequency ratios in music. Whether naturally occurring (sunsets and rainbows) or the result of human activity (paintings and dance), our world contains many things that we find aesthetically pleasing. Without the balance, symmetry and subtly-repeating patterns all around us, we would live in a very ugly world.

Human beings are talented and creative. An effect of being created in God’s image is that we can reflect a portion of His creativity. We are not restricted to simply existing, plodding along with no purpose other than survival (and why even bother surviving, in that case?) Instead, we can have ideas, design and build new things, explore and learn, discover new ways to enhance our lives and the world around us. How dull it would be if we all moved through life as clones in lockstep, never changing or trying anything new!

Evil is not as bad as it COULD be. About this time, I imagine some reader is thinking “Yeah, we use all that creativity to build bombs. Much of the world is ugly, a jungle of the strong preying on the weak.” Sadly, that is true. However, for each bad actor causing harm, there are those willing to risk their lives to stop it. For every fire, there are firefighters. For every illness, there are doctors and researchers dedicating their lives to healing. Think of the quick response to a natural disaster, where ordinary people pitch in to help however they can. There are parents giving of themselves every day to raise the next generation to be caring and kind. Among many harmful aspects of our culture, there are uplifting ones also. We are (yet!) not in the days of Noah, where “the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5)

Each of these is an example of common grace. All day, every day, everywhere, for everyone, God sustains a world where we can live well. He continues to do so even when we ignore or defy Him. It’s just what He does. We can’t reject or refuse these gifts. The rain will come regardless; the seasons will keep rolling around without caring what we think of them; our next breath will come and our bodies will process the oxygen without our conscious intervention. Beauty and creativity and conscience and kindness will persist even in the darkest of places.

He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Matthew 5:45

Saving Grace

But wait! There’s more!!

Beyond common grace, there is the special grace that connects our souls to God, “saving grace” in theological terms. This one is more optional on our part. God offers it to everyone, but gives us a choice whether or not to receive it.

Without God’s intentional creation, we would have no reason to expect any kind of real relationship with Him. Animals don’t. Only humans are designed to consciously receive His love and choose to reflect it back to Him. It’s too bad that we usually choose to ignore and reject Him. That is because we’d rather have our own way than to trust and obey and follow His way. The results are devastating.

Then, without God’s intervention, we would have no way to bridge the separation and reconcile with Him. We wouldn’t even know to do so, and wouldn’t be able to want to do so. That sense of separation and the realization that it’s our own fault (fancy theological term: “conviction of sin”) is itself an act of grace that encourages us to change course and turn back toward God (“repent“).

Now when they heard this [Peter’s sermon presenting the Gospel], they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?” Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.”

Acts 2:37-39

Finally, without God’s sacrificial action, all the repentance in the world would do us no good. Simply wanting to return to God does not make us able to accomplish it. Unable to come back on our own, we have to be carried back…by Jesus.

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;

Ephesians 2:8

…being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;

Romans 3:24

What makes saving grace so incredible is the fact that God offers it so freely, and wants so much for us to accept it.

Amazing Grace

Whether common grace lavished on everyone, or saving grace offered to anyone willing to accept it (John 3:16), it’s all Amazing Grace!