Page 2 of 2Q: The concept of saving grace is familiar to many people. What do you mean when you write about sustaining grace?
A: Saving grace saves us from our sins. Sustaining grace meets us at our point of need and equips us with courage, wisdom, and strength. It surprises us in the middle of our difficulties with ample resources of faith. Sustaining grace does not promise the absence of struggle but the presence of God. And according to Paul, God has sufficient sustaining grace to meet every single challenge of our lives. Sufficient. Grace is simply another word for his tumbling, rumbling reservoir of strength and protection. It comes at us not occasionally or miserly but constantly and aggressively, wave upon wave. We've barely regained our balance from one breaker, and then, bam, here comes another. God's grace dethrones your fears. Anxiety still comes, for certain. The globe still heats up; wars still flare up; the economy acts up. Disease, calamity, and trouble populate your world. But they don't control it! Grace does.
Q: You say that grace is God's answer to the question everyone asks: Do I matter?, which ultimately sounds like a question of identity.
A: Absolutely. We validate our existence with a flurry of activity. We do more, buy more, and achieve more. Like Jacob, we wrestle. All our wrestlings, I suppose, are merely asking this question: "Do I matter?" All of grace, I believe, is God's definitive reply: "Be blessed, my child. I accept you. I have adopted you into my family." Adopted children are chosen children. To accept God's grace is to accept God's offer to be adopted into his family. Your identity is not in your possessions, talents, tattoos, kudos, or accomplishments. Nor are you defined by your divorce, deformity, debt, or dumb choices. You are God's child. You get to call him "Papa." You "may approach God with freedom and confidence" (Eph. 3:12). You receive the blessings of his special love (1 John 4:9-11) and provision (Luke 11:11-13). And you will inherit the riches of Christ and reign with him forever (Rom. 8:17).
Q: As a result of this powerful grace, we can trust God's love for us is unending.
A: Yes, which means that rather than conjure up reasons to feel good about yourself, trust God's verdict. If God loves you, you must be worth loving. If he wants to have you in his kingdom, then you must be worth having. God's grace invites you—no, requires you—to change your attitude about yourself and take sides with God against your feelings of rejection. To live as God's child is to know, at this very instant, that you are loved by your Maker not because you try to please him and succeed, or fail to please him and apologize, but because he wants to be your Father. Nothing more. All your efforts to win his affection are unnecessary. All your fears of losing his affection are needless. You can no more make him want you than you can convince him to abandon you. The adoption is irreversible. You have a place at his table.
Click here to order Max Lucado's book, Grace: More Than We Deserve, Greater Than We Imagine.
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