Where does grace come from? How can I receive it? - Grace - TouchPoints

Psalm 84:11The Lord God is our sun and our shield. He gives us grace and glory. The Lord will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right.

Ephesians 2:8God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.

By God’s grace he decided to offer us the gift of salvation. We can do nothing to earn it, but simply receive it with faith and thanks. Grace begins with God and is given freely by God. His graciousness to us is our example for extending grace and mercy to others.

Leviticus 17:11“I have given you the blood on the altar to purify you, making you right with the Lord. It is the blood, given in exchange for a life, that makes purification possible.”

Leviticus 22:19-20“You will be accepted only if your offering is a male animal with no defects. It may be a bull, a ram, or a male goat. Do not present an animal with defects, because the Lord will not accept it on your behalf.”

Deuteronomy 6:17“You must diligently obey the commands of the Lord your God—all the laws and decrees he has given you.”

Hebrews 10:1-4The old system under the law of Moses was only a shadow, a dim preview of the good things to come, not the good things themselves. The sacrifices under that system were repeated again and again, year after year, but they were never able to provide perfect cleansing for those who came to worship. If they could have provided perfect cleansing, the sacrifices would have stopped, for the worshipers would have been purified once for all time, and their feelings of guilt would have disappeared. But instead, those sacrifices actually reminded them of their sins year after year. For it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

God is holy. This means he is perfectly good and hates sin. In order for us to have a relationship with God, sin had to be addressed. In Old Testament times, God gave a code of laws to show his people how to live in obedience to him and atone for their sins. But no matter how hard Israel followed the Law, they always fell short; and no matter how many animals they sacrificed, they could never remove their sins. God intended for the laws and sacrifices of the Old Testament to show us our need for grace—and to foreshadow Jesus’s perfect sacrifice.

Isaiah 53:5He [the Messiah] was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed

Matthew 5:17“Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose.”

John 1:16-17From his abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses, but God’s unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ.

John 1:29The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

Hebrews 10:11-14Under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins. But our High Priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then he sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand. There he waits until his enemies are humbled and made a footstool under his feet. For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy.

1 Peter 1:18-19You know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.

Sacrificial laws were very important in the Old Testament. When the Israelites sinned, God told them to kill an animal and offer it as a sacrifice in payment. The animals couldn’t have defects—they had to be worthy sacrifices (Leviticus 20:20). But animals could never truly remove sin. Only Jesus—perfect and sinless—could be a sacrifice great enough to remove our sins. When Jesus died on the Cross, he became our perfect sacrificial lamb—the Lamb of God—taking away the sins of the world. This was the cost of God’s gift of grace.

Hebrews 4:16So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.

We may freely approach God at any time, and he will freely give his mercy and grace.