Is grace enough? No.
Is faith enough? No.
The journey of your spiritual life will dance around these two concepts, requiring a balanced relationship between them. It is not a matter of embracing one while disregarding the other; rather, it's about recognizing their connected nature.
For by grace are ye saved through faith (Ephesians 2:8).
This verse shows the importance of the relationship between grace and faith. Grace is God’s unmerited and undeserved favor in your life, and faith is a response to God's grace. My pastor, Jeremy, says, “Grace sets the table, and faith eats.”
The reality is that faith alone will kill you, and grace alone will do the same.
Here’s why: Grace alone, when misunderstood, can lead to complacency and a passive acceptance of life's twists and turns. In other words, grace alone says, “God is in control of everything,” and “It doesn’t matter what I do, God’s Will will come to pass.”
On the other hand, faith alone, when misunderstood, leads to salvation through good works, making you believe that your personal goodness determines God’s blessings in your life. It says, “I have to do good works to be loved by God,” “If I read my Bible enough and pray enough, then God will heal me,” and “I can move God through my intercession.”
There is no such thing as “too much grace” or “too much faith.” However, if they are not mixed together, they are deadly. Take sodium and chloride as an example. Independent from one another, they are both deadly. But when you put them together, they make table salt, an essential part of our diet.
My wife and I say that there is no such thing as oversalting food. We love salt. When you find the right balance of grace and faith, it’s like that. It makes everything taste better.
Putting faith in His Grace gives you a profound paradigm shift. It's an acknowledgment that the finished work of Jesus has already established an unshakable connection between us and God. This reality says, “I trust that the finished work of Jesus has made me in right standing with God. Now I will live my life from that right standing, not to be in right standing. My actions will follow what I already believe.”
This mindset creates a transformative approach to life—a life not lived to earn righteousness but lived from righteousness. Actions spring forth as a reflection of what’s in your heart. And if it’s filled with the unwavering belief in God's grace rather than as a means to secure it, your life will demonstrate what you believe.
When you put grace and faith in their proper place, grace says, “God has already provided all of your needs,” and faith says, “My actions are a response to God’s provision.”
Grace and faith must be married. They cannot be separated. I am a grace preacher and a faith preacher. The day we separate the two, our message is dead.
The apostle Paul is a great example of how to balance the two. His life’s message was about his faith in God’s grace. He considered all of his own righteousness as filthy rags and instead put faith in God’s righteousness in him.
Paul didn’t trust in his own works to get him saved. He had a revelation of God’s grace on the road to Damascus. Paul was the best candidate for God to strike down with His wrath, but instead, He offered Paul grace. From that point on, Paul’s life was changed.
Before my wife and I conceived our son, Matthew, we had to come to this realization again. What most people don’t know is how long it took for us to conceive. At one point, we went into a version of works. Stephanie would track certain things going on with her body so that we had the “perfect” window to conceive.
In short, we tried to calculate how we could make this happen on our own. But then, one day, she felt in her heart to stop all of that and let it happen. Not that long after, we found out that we were expecting our wonderful child. We put faith in His grace, which already provided the blessing of children.
When you understand that you cannot do anything to make God do anything and without your cooperation, God can’t do anything, you’ll be reaping the benefits of the balance of grace and faith.
I cannot make God answer my prayers by praying longer, reading the Bible more, fasting, and doing good works. But I also won’t see God do anything in my life if I am sitting back and doing nothing.
The balance is putting faith in His grace. It’s taking action according to what you already believe, not what you are hoping for. If the Bible says that we are healed, then our faith in His grace will cause us to act healed–even if our bodies are telling us differently. What we won’t do is act healed to hopefully get healed. We aren’t faking it until we make it.
If God’s Word says that He has provided every need, then we won’t go out and work ten jobs to make ends meet. Instead, we will listen to what jobs we are supposed to work and trust that our needs have been met.
If grace alone were enough, no one would need to believe. Everyone would be saved. If faith alone were enough, there would be no need for grace.
Put faith in His grace.
Live in the victory.
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