God’s Grace – How to Receive & Release It

Introduction

God’s grace is not some vague concept. It is an experiential reality we are invited to partake of. Today, we’ll uncover some practical truths for how to both receive it personally and release it to others.

The members of Christ’s body have been given an extraordinary promise. We may obtain grace for every need every time.

Therefore, let’s approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace for help at the time of need. – Heb 4:16 NASB20

We see here:

Grace comes from God’s throne
Grace is help given
The Lord reigns and rests from a place of grace
Grace has a corporal aspect – we may obtain it together
The Lord’s supply of grace is unlimited. It far exceeds mankind’s past, present, and future needs – both personally and collectively.

Therefore, failure to find grace is often due to:

Not asking for it confidently, or:
Not properly appropriating it

#1 is easily resolved. #2 requires we expand our understanding of how the Lord delivers grace. Let’s explore #2.

Receiving God’s Grace

During Christmas time, many packages are delivered all over the world. However, some get stolen, declined, forgotten, destroyed by animals, or neglected. These may cause the intended recipient to forgo the blessing of the gift.

When we believe and ask God for grace, He always delivers it (1 John 5:14). However, His deliveries can get inadvertently rejected or misappropriated.

Key #1 to receiving it: Openness

Receiving God’s grace first requires an open mind. Consider an Amazon delivery. After it arrives, we must first open our door. Then, we must open the package. Finally, product packaging must be opened.

Likewise, receiving God’s deliveries of grace requires openness at every step of the process. Openness entails:

Recognizing God’s grace is multifaceted. As it is delivered down to us from above (James 1:17), it can take many forms.
Having no expectations or predilections for how His grace will be formed, delivered, or packaged when it arrives on our doorstep.

God is infinitely creative in the formation, delivery, and packaging of His grace. Christ’s birth is a prime example.

The God of grace and the grace of God came to us by taking on human form – unexpected.
His delivery came through a virgin in a room reserved for animals – unexpected.
He was then packaged in lamb garments and placed in a feeding trough afterward – unexpected.

God’s ways have not changed.

The God who made a coin appear in a fish’s mouth to help a man pay taxes (Matthew 17:27) can cause His grace to appear in your life in the unlikeliest of ways.

It can be delivered as pills, people, policies, healing, connections, a drive thru cashier, phone calls, children, unbelievers, a mechanic, a nurse, strangers, animals, a boss, an employee, a spouse, inner strength and energy, our enemies, a social media post, supernatural power, prophecy, & even others’ mistakes. The list goes on and on…

Grace can even come to us in uncomfortable forms. This includes nuisances, irritating situations, or spiritual sources of frustration (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). Like Paul, we can be praying fervently for something to leave us when it may be a tool of grace to perfect or empower us. After we ask for grace, this entails giving Him complete liberty to respond as He wants to, not as we want Him to. The key is to let God be God and not overlap our expectations onto His solutions.

This grace gap of “misunderstood expectations” is a weakness we all have. We must therefore possess a higher perspective from an unbiased source – the Holy Spirit. He helps us in this weakness:

Now in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for [us] with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to [the will of] God. – Rom 8:26-27 NASB20

The opposite of open-mindedness is closed-mindedness. Close-mindedness was the Israeli religious leader’s primary problem during Jesus’ day. Because grace came into their world in a form they did not expect, they rejected it. Close-mindedness and legalism are intertwined. Legalism, in its essence, is the rejection of God’s grace in the present by limiting it to how it looked in the past.

Legalism not only had dire consequences for many 1^sts century jews. It can also be a major barrier in the Body of Christ today. Any legalism within us may result in the obstruction of God’s grace toward us.

It is in recognizing our weaknesses in humility when God amply supplies His grace to us (James 4:6).

Key #2 to receiving it: Watchfulness

Beyond openness, the second key to receiving His grace is watchfulness. Watchfulness means paying careful attention to life’s situations as they unfold. The Lord admonishes us several times to be watchful:

Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end…- Eph 6:18a NKJV

But you be watchful in all things… – 2Ti 4:5 NKJV

But the end of all things is at hand; therefore, be serious and watchful in your prayers. – 1Pe 4:7 NKJV

“Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain” … – Rev 3:2 NKJV

These days many people have cameras on their front door entrances to watch for deliveries. After orders are placed, homeowners can see on a video screen or receive an SMS notification regarding the delivery in action. Likewise, watching for God’s grace to arrive requires keeping our eyes open for it to arrive any time in any form.

If we are not watchful, we may fail to connect the delivery of His grace to the Heavenly order we submitted for it. Writing down our prayers and life events regularly may help connect the prayer to the package.

Now that we’ve discussed how to receive it, let’s explore ways to release it to others.

Releasing God’s Grace

We are called to release God’s grace. We do this by giving it away. There are many ways to do it. Two include the use of our spiritual gifts and speech.

Key #1 to release it: Spiritual gifts – When one enters the Kingdom, the Lord immediately endows them with a certain spiritual ability:

As each one has received a [special] gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the multifaceted grace of God. – 1Pe 4:10 NASB20

We see:

Each have a specific ability (e.g., gift)
Each need to put it to work (i.e., employ it)
Each gift is a unique expression of God’s multifaceted grace
Using our gifts equals good stewardship in the Lord’s eyes

As the light of God’s grace shines upon His church, it releases and refracts differently through each member. Like a diamond that fluoresces different color lights on each of its faces, the gifts of the Spirit reveal God’s multifaceted colors of grace.

Gifts are often given in seed form. Like a muscle, they are developed through use over time. Discovery often comes through self-assessment. While a core gift resides within each member of the Body, additional spiritual gifts may be granted upon request or during certain situational needs as the Holy Spirit wills.

Note: Headship gifts given by Christ during His ascension (Ephesians 4:11-16) and the gifts of the Spirit (described in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10 & 28-30, Romans 12:3-8) are different. A full teaching on spiritual gifts is outside today’s teaching’s scope.

Key #2 to release it: Our Speech – Another way we can dispense God’s grace to others is through our speech:

[Let] your speech always [be] with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one. – Col 4:6 NKJV

We see:

The words and tones we use have the capacity to dispense God’s grace to whomever they are directed.
We should ask the Lord to sprinkle His grace on our speech as it goes forth.
Truth and grace are inter-connected. Sharing our testimony or God’s truth without it being seasoned with grace may cause it to be rejected.

Conclusion

God’s grace is for helping meet needs – our own and others. It is multifaceted and comes in many forms and colors. As His saints, we should ask for it. Then, be open and watchful for how it comes our way. To release it to others entails, beyond other things, using our spiritual gifts and speech. I pray that the:

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. – 2Co 13:14 NASB20