Ephesians 2:8 plainly states, “by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (NASB). Most believers understand that this means they do not have to go to Hell because they believe in Christ. However, this scripture is relevant to every area of our lives. We cannot just trust the Lord to provide us eternal security and then go on trying earn all of His other forms of help. We must remember Paul's challenging words in Galatians 3:3. He wrote, “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (NASB) By the way they live, the answer for many is clearly “yes!”

     It is only by the grace of God that we can ever attain salvation from any of our problems. Even the things we need in this life – such as wisdom, conviction, emotional stability, and discipline – all come to us through the miracle-working power of the Holy Spirit. His supernatural grace is our source, and we can only access it by faith. It is “not of ourselves, it is the gift of God!”

     This sort of thinking is often rejected by believers, because they rightly want to avoid receiving a false message of grace. They want nothing to do with “greasy grace” that allows men to slip further into sin without even considering how foolish it is. In a sense though, genuine grace is “greasy.” It is the Lord's anointing oil that helps us to slip into His perfect will for our lives. It allows us to testify that His yoke is easy and His burden is light, despite the fact that we live in a world full of tribulation (Matthew 11:30, John 16:33). It helps us to move past the hardships of life, sliding closer to our Maker with upright and happy hearts.

     If we want to be free from moral compromises we need more grace. In fact, we need grace not to be legalistic and uptight as well. A “grace-full” person will walk in balance in all things much more consistently than someone who ignores grace. He will likewise be able to gracefully get up and keep advancing even if he does fall to one side or the other. Without grace, everyone will try to please God in their own strength, and after a while, multitudes will give up altogether. So both false religion and wild rebellion will result.

     In order to live a lifestyle that honors our Heavenly Father, we must make it our aim to trust more in His free grace. We must pray the words of Hebrews 12:28, “let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear” (KJV). We have to have gratitude for what Christ has done for us, realizing that our Messiah truly has “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ” (NLT). Our performance and faithfulness pales in comparison to His, but because of the Son, we can actually be inspired to think and behave in ways we never could have in our flesh.

     Yes, we do have to take many actions in order to display this grace through our lifestyle. Yet even then we do not place our faith in our own obedience or commitments. As Galatians 2:20 declares, we can say, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (NLT). There is no other way to walk out our Christianity!