Grace is the free and undeserved gift of God the Father through Jesus
Christ. The grace of God is the greatest expression of God the Father's love and
all-encompassing mercy. Grace is more than the forgiveness of sins. To be under grace
means to continually be receiving God's divine love, favor, blessing, gracious care, help,
goodwill, benefits, gifts and goodness. God the Father is the source from which grace
comes to the believer. The ONLY MEANS by which grace is granted to the believer is through
the birth, life, crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the perfect
sacrifice of God the Father. The believer enters the grace of God through faith in the
sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of his or her sins. God the Father grants
His grace to each believer upon repentance of sins and baptism by immersion, which is the
outward manifestation of repentance. Through grace, the believer's sins are forgiven and
the righteousness of Jesus Christ is imputed to him or her.
Grace establishes a new spiritual relationship between the believer and
God the Father and Jesus Christ. Through the unearned and unmerited gift of grace, the
believer is not only chosen, called, forgiven and accepted by God the Father through His
Beloved, but is also begotten with the Holy Spirit, making him or her a child of God and
an heir of eternal life. From this point, the spiritually begotten believer begins a new
life under grace. As the Scriptures reveal, living under grace requires the believer to
live by every word of God with complete love and devotion to God the Father and Jesus
Christ. Grace does not grant one license to practice sin by ignoring or rejecting the
commandments of God. Only those who keep His commandments can abide in His love and remain
under His grace. Every believer who receives the grace of God has a personal obligation to
God the Father and Jesus Christ to forsake his or her old, sinful thoughts and practices
and to live a new life, daily growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. For
every believer who lives under grace, Jesus Christ acts as Redeemer, High Priest and
Advocate. If the believer commits a sin, He intercedes to propitiate the Father and to
obtain His mercy and grace. The grace of God which comes through Jesus Christ keeps the
repentant believer in a continual state of blamelessness and sinlessness.
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