What is Grace?

What is Grace?

In pondering what Jesus is really like, John 1 was brought to mind.  

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. John 1:14

So, the real Jesus was full of grace and truth.  So, whatever grace is, Jesus was completely filled with it.  So, if Jesus is ours and we our His, should not grace be a major aspect of our character?  Should it not be a great measure of what God is working in us?

A common definition of grace is “God’s unmerited favor.”  That alone should impact our relations with one another.  Are we full of granting unmerited favor to those around us?  

Think about how wretched we would be before God without the righteousness of Christ.  Yet it is in that wretchedness that God extends His grace to us.  Consider Ephesians 2.  It is not a pretty picture.  Dead in trespasses and sins.  Following the world and Satan.  Fulfilling the lusts of the flesh and the mind.  Children of wrath.  This is not a lovely description.  But it us in this condition, that wretched and wicked state, that He extends both mercy and grace.  He is the absolutely holy and just God, but His love and mercy and grace devised a plan whereby we could be reconciled to Him.  If I am remembering a line from The Screwtape Letters correctly, Screwtape notes, “He actually loves those little vermin.”  Compared to God, that is really what we are.  But He does love us.  And He does give grace.  He gives us His favor, His fellowship, communion with Him, the glorious privilege of knowing Him by His grace.

Is that what we are like?  Do we give and love and fellowship to those who have sinned against us?  Are we full of grace?