Quotes about Grace-Necessary

1

God’s grace didn’t get us going then leave us to get by on our works. Grace didn’t just justify us in the past, it sustains us in the present and will deliver us in the future.

2

It is not only by grace alone that we become God’s people but by grace alone we remain His people.

3

While the Law defines righteousness, only grace delivers it. The Law was never intended to be a means of obtaining grace; it was given to demonstrate to men that grace was desperately needed.

4

To find acquittal from God on the last day there must be evidence flowing out of us that grace has flowed into us.

5

For almost twenty years and I still feel the old clinging dirt of wanting to deal with God that I may contribute something, so that He will have to give me His grace in exchange for my holiness. And still I cannot get into my head that I should surrender myself completely to sheer grace.

6

The very center and core of the whole Bible is the doctrine of the grace of God — the grace of God which depends not one whit upon anything that is in man, but is absolutely undeserved, resistless and sovereign. The theologians of the Church can be placed in an ascending scale according as they have grasped that one great central doctrine, that doctrine that gives consistency to all the rest; and Christian experience also depends for its depth and for its power upon the way in which that blessed doctrine is cherished in the depths of the heart. The center of the Bible, and the center of Christianity, is found in the grace of God; and the necessary corollary of the grace of God is salvation through faith alone.

7

A man can no more take in a supply of grace for the future than he can eat enough for the next six months, or take sufficient air into his lungs at one time to sustain life for a week. We must draw upon God’s boundless store of grace from day to day, as we need it.

8

According to the Bible, all humans are born in sin (Psm. 51:5) and enslaved to sin (Rom. 6:6). We have willfully rebelled against God and have fallen short of His righteous standard (Rom. 3:23). We are dead in our sins (Eph. 2:1). Our best religious deeds are polluted in His sight (Isa. 64:6). In and of ourselves we are without any hope of heaven (Eph. 2:12). We deserve the wrath of God in hell (Rom. 2:5).

9

What moves God is not our supposed goodness or trophies of righteousness, but rather our desperation and cry to Him for grace. If we could earn it, grace would no longer be grace. Grace by its very definition is giving us what we do not deserve. If we were entitled to God’s favor, it would be a wage that we are due. But since we have merited nothing from God and God being God owes us nothing, we see His favor both in salvation and the blessings that follow all as a token of His undeserved grace to the praise of His glory.

10

All false religion is based on works to achieve God’s favor. And when you base it on works you will either use God’s Word as a means to obtain God’s favor or ignore God Word and create your own expectations. Both are deadly because both short-circuit God method of grace.

11

It is a greater work of God to bring men to grace, than being in the state of grace, to bring them to glory; because sin is far more distant from grace than grace is from glory.

12

Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.

13

[T]here is nothing in us or done by us at any stage of our earthly development because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake or we cannot ever be accepted at all. This is not true of us only “when we believe,” it is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live… It is always, on His “blood and righteousness” alone that we can rest. There is never anything that we are or have or do that can take His place or that take a place along with Him. We are always unworthy, and all that we have or do of good is always of pure grace.

14

Advance in the Christian life comes not by the work of the Holy Spirit alone, nor by our work alone, but by our responding to and cooperating with the grace the Holy Spirit initiates and sustains.

Recommended Books

Grace Alone – Salvation as a Gift of God: What the Reformers Taught…and Why It Still Matters

Carl Trueman

Future Grace: The Purifying Power of the Promises of God

John Piper

What’s So Great about the Doctrines of Grace?

Richard Phillips

Putting Amazing Back into Grace: Embracing The Heart Of The Gospel

Michael Horton

Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners

John Bunyan

Grow in Grace

Sinclair Ferguson