Grace is the English word translated from Latin, gratia, which in turn is translated from the Greek, charis, meaning “undeserved favor.” Love is the twin sister of grace (John 3:16; Eph. 2:8). Christ is the personification of God’s grace, and that’s why His death to save the human race is the utmost act of love. Jesus came to manifest grace and love, to rescue humankind from its condemnation and bondage to sin.

Without Grace
Because of sin, we’re all without hope and deserving of death. But because of Christ, we can experience the abundance of grace, which results in salvation and life. Christ’s communication of grace and love exceeds and overrides the guilt and wrath caused by Adam and Eve’s sin. Beyond that, we are promised: Where sin abounded, grace over abounded (Rom. 5:20). This is a wonderful solution to the problem of sin: Christ freely gives His abundant grace to all who wish to cover themselves with His righteousness and mercy. Grace Needs to Be Accepted. During the administration of United States president Andrew Jackson, George Wilson, a postal clerk, robbed a federal payroll from a train and killed a guard. The court convicted Wilson and sentenced him to hang. Because of public sentiment against capital punishment, however, a movement began to secure a presidential pardon for Wilson (it was his first offense). Eventually President Jackson intervened with a pardon. Amazingly, Wilson refused it. The Supreme Court was asked to rule on whether a person could refuse a presidential pardon. Chief Justice John Marshall handed down the Court’s decision: “A pardon is a parchment whose only value must be determined by the receiver of the pardon. It has no value apart from that which the receiver gives to it. George Wilson refused to accept the pardon. . . . We cannot conceive why he would do so, but he has. Therefore, George Wilson must die.” Wilson was hanged. Pardon, declared the Supreme Court, must not only be granted, it must be accepted. So it is with God’s grace. He offers it to us, but it can be experienced only if we accept it. Christ is the personification of God’s grace. To obtain the gift of grace we need only to claim God’s promises (2 Cor. 8:9; Eph. 2:5-7), pray for grace (John 14:13, 14), and allow the Holy Spirit to speak to our hearts, awakening us to the reality of our need (Eph. 1:12, 13; Ps. 51:1).

Three Dimensions of Grace. God’s abundant grace has three dimensions–past, present, and future. When we accept His grace we are made new, and our past is buried in Christ. As we walk with the Lord our transformed lives are evidence of His abundant grace in us. Even if we sin His grace is, and will always be, available to pardon us if we confess and repent of our sins.

Grace Preserves Life
The presence of sin in the human heart brought competition, division, discrimination, and differences between God’s creatures. Through His care for nature, God’s grace controls life on earth, because nature also suffers sin’s consequences (Rom. 8:20, 22). God’s wonderful promises include the redemption of nature from sin and its consequences when sin is finally destroyed (Isa. 35:1, 2, 7; 55:13). Nature Portrays God’s Grace. God’s grace is easily perceived in the maintenance of life on our earth. Sunshine and rain sustain life on the planet and cause the land to produce food. Seasons come and go, benefiting human beings and nature itself. Everything in the universe testifies to a Creator and a Sustainer, despite the intrusion of sin and its consequences. God’s Grace on Our Planet. Nature’s ecological equilibrium has been disturbed in some parts of the world, usually out of ignorance or because of limited vision and economical ambitions (many times in the name of development and progress) without consideration for long-term consequences. Despite the destruction imposed on our planet, we can see traces of God’s wonderful work: the beautiful fields of Alberta, Canada; the Great Barrier Reef in Australia; the Norwegian fjords; the amazing, mysterious, and untouched nature in Africa; the magnitude of the Amazon rain forest; the numberless varieties of birds daily sustained by God’s gracious hand; unimaginable kinds of animals peculiar to each region on our planet; countless types of trees with their fruits. Is there any reason to believe that any of these are here by chance? The evidence suggests a Creator and Maintainer of life. Those of us who have experienced God’s abundant grace have a responsibility to do our part in preserving nature. God’s grace protects and enhances life on our planet; and we, as His witnesses, are called to testify about this.

God’s Grace Extended
God’s grace is free to everyone regardless of ethnic, racial, social, gender, national, or tribal differences–mere human classifications. Christ came to destroy all human barriers or divisions that separate His children from God or each other. He came to reconnect humanity with God and establish a new order in which people live in peace and harmony when they choose to be transformed by His grace. God’s Promises in His Word. God makes no distinction between us in His dealings, because He accepts us just as we are. “Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all” (Col. 3:11, NIV). That means there is no male or female, Jew or Gentile (or Palestinian), Zulu or Xhosa, Serbian or Croatian, Hutu or Tutsi, White or Aboriginal, Black or White. We are all one before God (Gal. 3:28). The Bible is full of promises assuring us that God’s grace brings salvation, hope, and life if we simply come to Him. There are no limits to what His grace can do to transform us. Acceptance and Renewal. When we experience God’s overabundance of grace in our lives, the natural consequence is the transformation of our character. This in turn leads to our acceptance of one another and the desire to live together as children of God. All intrigue, prejudice, or discrimination–so much a part of our sinful nature–will be changed by Christ’s marvelous grace. This is the practical and visible evidence of God’s overabundant grace to our society. The world cannot understand it, but it will marvel at it. God’s Ideal Plan. God’s original plan involved face-to-face communication with His created beings in a setting in which they would enjoy His company eternally. This was temporarily obliterated by the intrusion of sin. The Bible employs the symbol of angels (messengers) commissioned with the task of proclaiming the plan of salvation to every nation, tribe, language, and people (Rev. 14:6, 7). The truth enveloped here is clear: God invites every person to be part of His kingdom regardless of his or her ethnic, racial, gender, social, national, or tribal differences.

A Practical Grace
God’s grace is a gift to us. The conditions for receiving God’s grace are a recognition of our need and a willingness to surrender ourselves completely to Him in order to be changed and made new by His grace.  Grace and Obedience. Boris Kornfeld was a Jewish physician who had fallen victim to Stalin’s purges. We do not know his “crime” except that he was sentenced to a concentration camp for political subversives at Ekibastuz.  Kornfeld was an ardent Communist, a cultural Jew, and an atheist. Because he was a doctor, he lived a little better than the other prisoners–the prison authorities needed doctors to care for the prisoners who were constantly dying under the primitive conditions of their imprisonment. While in the concentration camp Kornfeld began to reexamine his beliefs in Communism. One of his patients was a Christian who witnessed to him the transforming grace of Jesus Christ. He struggled over giving his life to God. One day as he worked to save the life of one of the prison guards who had been knifed, he was tempted to suture the severed artery in such a way that it would reopen shortly after the surgery. The guard would die, and no one would be the wiser. As his hands paused while tying the suture he suddenly became appalled by the violence and hatred in his own heart toward the guard and all those like him. He despised his persecutors. He could gladly kill them all. He then realized that he was trapped by the very evil that he despised. He began to retie the suture properly, and as he did, he found himself repeating the words he had heard from his fellow prisoner: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” These were strange words for a Jew. But he continued to pray the Lord’s Prayer and recount other passages about God’s love and forgiveness. One day he discovered an orderly stealing some of the food meant only for the patients. Orderlys were quislings, prisoners who had betrayed some other prisoner. The prison authorities used them to keep order, and turned their backs when they abused other inmates. Kornfeld reported this infraction to the prison commandant. The commandant placed the orderly in three days of confinement. Kornfeld knew that his life would not be safe once the orderly was released. But eventually he found he was not afraid. A remarkable peace had come into his heart. He wanted to share his new faith. One afternoon he examined a prisoner who had been operated on for cancer of the intestines. The eyes of this man were filled with sorrow, and his face was etched with years of misery. Kornfeld felt mysteriously attracted to him. Kornfeld shared what had happened to him, how God had transformed his life. The patient drifting in and out of consciousness did not catch it all. But he heard enough to know that this man, this doctor, was different. The next morning the young patient awoke to the sound of running feet and a great commotion. That very night someone had bludgeoned Boris Kornfeld to death. But his testimony did not die. The patient pondered the testimony of the doctor and became a Christian. He survived that prison camp and went on to tell the world about it. His name was Alexander Solzhenitsyn. He is most famous for his massive exposé of conditions under Stalin in his book The Gulag Archipelago. Even though Kornfeld did not live long, he followed the path of the apostle Paul, who also was transformed by grace from a persecutor of Christians to a Christian himself. This story is condensed from Charles Colson, Loving God  (New York: Harper Paperbacks, 1987), pp. 19-29.

“And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18).

Think for a moment about your greatest need–emotional and relational. The cry of humanity, the cry of every individual, is acceptance for who they are. We want to be loved, to be valued, and to be accepted just as we are. But also we have to take into consideration that God always accepts you as you are but He never leaves you where you are.

When Adam and Eve took the forbidden fruit, they knew they had done something wrong. They were afraid that God would no longer accept them as they had become, so when God came looking for them, they hid. We have been hiding ever since. We are afraid that God will not love us. We find it difficult to confess our sins, our problems, and our difficulties, because we are afraid that others in the church will look down on us. We are afraid of rejection just as Adam and Eve were. Yet we need each other in order to grow in Jesus. So how do we find the power, the resolve, to lose our fear? How do we become transformed to be like Jesus and to conquer the sin in our lives? It comes from understanding the grace that transformed the life of Boris Kornfeld.

What Is Grace?
Grace begins with acceptance: “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God” (Rom. 15:7). What did we have to do for Christ to accept us? Nothing! Paul tells us that “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). Christ does not wait until we are good before He accepts us. The Bible is clear that no one is good or will never be good enough (see Rom. 3:10-12, 23). If no one is good enough and there is nothing that we can do that will make God love us, how then are we saved? “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:30, 31). Believing in Jesus means that you have come to the place where you recognize that you are helpless and there is nothing you can do to get to heaven. You realize that you are guilty and you deserve to die. You are sorry for your life of sin. So you place your full trust in Jesus. You accept as yours the perfect life Jesus lived, and you change from being dependent on yourself to being dependent on Jesus. When God gives you His grace, His pardon, He does not expect you to keep on living the same way as you lived before. Your surrender to Him allows Him to place the Holy Spirit in your life. He transforms you so that you desire to do good things. You desire to follow Christ’s commandments because you love Him (John 14:15). This is why the apostle Paul said that God had commissioned him to “call . . . the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith” (Rom. 1:5).

Boris Kornfeld knew when he became a Christian that he would change, and that his behavior would change. When you accept Christ, your life will change. Remember, “ God always accepts you as you are, but He never leaves you where you are “. When you accept His gracious gift of salvation, He places all the resources of heaven at your request so that you can grow to become more like Jesus. What does a person who is growing like Jesus look like? Just because a person has accepted the seventh-day Sabbath, or changes how they dress, or returns tithe to God does not make them a Christian. A person can do all these things without surrendering to the lordship of Jesus. There is something more basic that Jesus wants.

Back to Basics
At the Last Supper just before He died, Jesus explained how people would know who His followers were. He said that everyone would know them by how they loved one another (John 13:35). Ellen White endorsed what Jesus said when she stressed how God’s people are to live in the last days: “Those who wait for the Bridegroom’s coming are to say to the people [the world], ‘Behold your God.’ The last rays of merciful light, the last message of mercy to be given to the world, is a revelation of His character of love.”  Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 415.

“A loving, lovable Christian is the most powerful argument in favor of the truth.” Manuscript Releases, vol. 21, p. 25.

A Bicycle Built for Two
I like to illustrate the connection between grace and transformation to a bicycle. A bicycle has two wheels. If we separate the wheels, we no longer have a bicycle, but it is important to distinguish the difference between the wheels. One steers the bike and the other powers the bike. Both are equally important and necessary.

Salvation is made up of two parts–grace and transformation. Both are necessary for heaven, and if we separate them we no longer have salvation. But just as with the bicycle, it is vital that we distinguish their unique functions. Grace is what saves us. Grace comes entirely from God. It is outside us and is given to us freely when we place our trust in Jesus. Transformation begins to take place the moment we receive grace. Transformation takes place inside us. We always look to grace for the assurance of our salvation, yet are always conscious that we are growing in obedience to God. As we cooperate with God He changes us into His image.  Amen! To be continued.

In Christ,

Br Nicholas Anca.