God’s grace involves something more than giving us salvation. We not only are saved by grace, but we are to live by grace. We stand in grace: it is the foundation for the Christian life. Grace gives us the strength we need to be victorious soldiers. Grace enables us to suffer without complaining, and even to use that suffering for God’s glory. When a Christian turns away from living by God’s grace, he must depend on his own power. This leads to failure and disappointment.

This is what Paul means by “fallen from grace” (Galatians 5:4)— moving out of the sphere of grace into the sphere of law, ceasing to depend on God’s resources and depending on our own resources.

No wonder Paul was anxious as he wrote his Epistle to the Galatians. His friends in Christ were deserting the God of grace, perverting the grace of God, and reverting to living by the flesh and their own resources. They had begun their Christian lives in the Spirit, but now they were going to try to continue living in the power of the flesh.

Paul wrote: “By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me”
(1 Corinthians 15:10, NASB).

Other Scripture: Romans 5:1-2; 2 Corinthians 12:1-10; Galatians 3:3.

Action assignment: Write out your understanding of the term grace. Look up a song focusing on God’s grace and sing it. Thank God for his marvelous grace.