Most people confuse mercy with grace and actually then end up replacing faith for grace.

We are saved by grace through faith Eph 2:8.  Grace is the agent of sozo.  We have been taught that faith is what saves you.  Keeping in mind that the definition of saved (sozo) is healed, made whole, delivered, prospered, kept safe, restored, rescued.  All that comes by grace.

So what is grace?  Let’s first look at what grace is not.  Grace is typically taught as mercy.  Mercy is God’s ability to forgive a sin, grace is God’s ability that works in you to keep you from that sin and propel you into the abundant life of God.

In some circles, faith has replaced what grace should be.  The bible says we’re  saved by grace…that means we’re prospered by grace, we’re delivered by grace, we’re healed by grace, etc…  some have taught that all that stuff comes by faith.  We’ve turned faith into this magical thing that gets you stuff.  We have tried to get enough faith to get the stuff that God says we can have.  Faith is not what I do to get God to respond to me, faith is my response of trust to what God has already done.  “Already done” being the free gift of righteousness as a result of the death, burial and resurrection and all that entails in regard to identity and authority.

Although the intention of the “build your own” faith teaching may be sincere, it’s a performance based approach.  If you try to get saved by faith, you’re in your own efforts.  We’re sozo by grace.  Faith is a factor but it’s more of a posture to adopt.  Faith means to trust.  Our only legal action available is to just believe.  Since we’ve left out grace, we’ve left it to needing more faith or believing harder, which doesn’t work.  Faith is the substance of things expected and the evidence of things not seen but it’s grace that takes the action by the influence of God to come to pass.

Jesus did say that if you believe you’ll have what you say but he’s not inferring that your belief is what causes it to manifest, he actually says that God will do it…that’s the heart of grace.  We stand in belief of what he said he’d do then it manifests.  It’s a no lose situation.  Now the heart is capable of unbelief thereby nullifying the grace of God because unbelief usually puts us into our own labors but the good news is that God is bigger than your heart and able to make his goodness abound toward you in the midst of your unbelief.  ( I see this with signs, wonders and other healings)

Let’s now define grace.  Again, most confuse mercy with grace.  Remember, mercy is God’s compassion and unconditional acceptance after tragedy or sin.  Grace has by and large been taught as the favor of God.  While this is included in the definition, it’s not the complete definition.  Grace also means “a divine influence on your heart”.  It literally means an ability that’s breathed into your heart by God.  It also means “capacity”.  You’re literally a capacitor for God in this earth.  A capacitor stores a charge and has the potential to release that charge…we release God into our lives and others…this is grace.

Now Proverbs tells us that out of the heart flow ALL the issues of life…above ALL else, guard your heart.  We literally live from our hearts.  The heart is the real you,  it’s from where you live.

So if grace is a God inspired ability that we can’t faith up (that means sozo is something we can’t faith up by ourselves), grace is God’s capacity working in you.  Grace is that divine influence that rises up out of your heart when you feel you can’t go on.  Grace is that fresh word from God that causes you to resist that sin and experience God’s abundant life.  Grace is that fuel that causes you to stand under any pressure and come out victoriously.  Grace is that power within you to prove the love of God and perform miracles by the Spirit of God as Jesus did.

I realize that we’re told to have the shield of faith but remember that we’re saved by grace through faith.  Faith in itself is not powerful unless it accesses the free, divinely inspired, power of God in your own heart.  Faith can only access that by love because the Word says, “faith works by love”.  Just as a side note, faith doesn’t work by fear, greed, selfish gain or even need.  Faith works by love.

It’s interesting to note that we’re to access grace, through faith and faith in itself is even a gift.  We can’t even adopt a posture of trust if it were not given to us by God.  Another interesting point is the word “gift” in the original language is actually the Greek word “charis” which is the same word that we translate as grace.

The paradox is that we’re sozo by grace through faith and faith in itself is a grace (gift).  The picture is that God even gives us the ability to stand in faith to access the grace in our hearts because he first loved us.  That kind of reminds me of a scripture that says we have grace for grace (John 1:16 And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace).  God gives you the ability to access his ability.  The next time you think you’re not strong enough to see the promise fulfilled in your life, remember that He gives you ability to even get ability in the first place.

The final component is love.  Faith works by love.  Faith doesn’t work because of your love, faith works because of his love for us.  When we know and feel the love God for us, alive in our hearts, the fruit will be faith springing up into a substance that sparks hope and belief.  Once that hope sparks, grace (God’s influence and power in you) empowers you to walk out what he’s called you into or that promise you know is yours.  Faith works when you know that God loves you.

God is so good that he didn’t leave us to ourselves in anything.  He has covered every base, he has wrapped you in a cocoon of his love, mercy, forgiveness, ability and power to be what you’re predestined to be, which is to be conformed into the image of Christ.  Check your heart and make sure you’re abiding in God’s love for you and your love for him and watch a supernatural lifestyle unfold before your eyes.