1 Peter 1:2

•Grace understood is a powerful presence in our lives.

•Our actions, feelings, lifestyles are affected by the abiding grace of God.

•What are some of the effects of truly understood grace?

•"Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession.... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate." — Dietrich Bonhoeffer (The Cost of Discipleship)

•Ephesians 2:4-8 -- But because of his great love for us, God…made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace…For it is by grace you have been saved….”

•2 Corinthians 8:9 -- For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

•So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. 6 And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.

•Acts 20:32 --"Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

•However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me--the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.

•…All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all its truth

•Paul’s common greeting: “Grace to you and peace….”

•Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

•who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.

•May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.

•The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.