GRACE AS ENTITLEMENT

Scriptures clearly teach that grace is a gift; a gift, like all gifts, which one must receive. But though it is free… it is not without responsibility. It is a gift that must be cared for, matured, nurtured, and shared. This responsibility is not a work but a privilege. When faith is applied to grace, our work is done by Holy Spirit gifts and has little to do with our fleshly and human efforts.

Contemporary theology continues to hammer out a grace message as an entitlement. Entitlement meaning that a person has a right to something… in this case grace. It is true that we all have a right to grace, but it is also true that we each must take grace as an offered gift from a generous and loving Father. We are entitled to the work of Jesus by faith. That is when the free gift begins to cost us something as it did him. Without cost we rarely grow and develop in our grace, which usually means we have accepted the Savior part but not the Lord part. He is both. Grace is both.

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” Jesus