June 20. Grace is pardon and power. By the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace toward

me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I,

but the grace of God, that is with me, 1 Corinthians 1510. Grace is not simply leniency when we have

sinned. Grace is the enabling gift and power of God not to sin. Grace is power, not just pardon.

This is plain, for example, in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul describes Grace as the enabling power of

his work. It is not simply the pardon of his sins. It is the power to press on in obedience.

I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

Therefore, the effort we make to obey God is not an effort done in our own strength,

but by the strength that God supplies in order that in everything, God may be glorified,

1 Peter 4 11. It is the obedience of faith, faith in God's ever-arriving, gracious power to

enable us to do what we shoot. Paul confirms this in 2 Thessalonians 1 11 and 12 by calling each of

our acts of goodness a work of faith. By saying that the glory this brings to Jesus is according to

the grace of our God because it happens by His power. Listen for all those phrases.

To this end, we always pray for you that our God may make you worthy of His calling and may

fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by His power so that the name of our Lord

Jesus may be glorified in you and you in Him according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus

Christ. The obedience that gives God pleasure is produced by the power of God's grace through faith.

The same dynamic is at work at every stage of the Christian life. The power of God's grace that

saves through faith Ephesians 2.8 is the same power of God's grace that sanctifies through faith.