Grace and Obedience

Grace is God granting us a favor. Imagine if we were formerly in debt, and now God just comes along and pays our debt freely for us. And then He gives us a fresh start and a large deposit tha we can spend as we wish.... or is that really true? No, the last part isn't.

I like to think of grace as the "spending  money" God gives us, and obedience is what He wants us to spent it on, not sin, not wickedness. He's not giving us the license to sin, He's giving us the power that can never have, to obey.

I'm just saying that God will never ask anything of us that He doesn't give us the strength and power to do. Everything we do, every good work, every act of obedience - its He who has given us the grace to do what we cannot do on our own.

He gave us the "dollar bill" and he sent us to the store to buy the "newspaper".

Some people say that grace means we are no longer obligated in any way, that God will never ask anything of us. No, I say, He asks only what is barely required of us, and even so, we cannot fulfill it. We are using His "credit", every time.