“Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace.”
— Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace
Imagine a man who has had every ounce of his humanity beaten out of him.
His name is Jean Valjean. For nineteen years, he was locked away in a brutal French penal colony—initially for stealing a single loaf of bread to feed his starving niece, and then for trying to escape. For nearly two decades, he was treated not as a man, but as an animal with a number. He learned that the world operates on a rigid, merciless system of cause and effect: if you take a step out of line, you are crushed. No one gives anything away. Mercy does not exist.
When he is finally paroled, he is handed a yellow passport—a permanent mark of his status as a convict. He is turned away from every inn, spat on, and forced to sleep in the streets. Society looks at him and sees a monster. Eventually, his heart hardens to meet their expectations. He becomes exactly what the world tells him he is: a cold, bitter, dangerous man.
One night, desperate and exhausted, he knocks on the door of an old, local Bishop.
Instead of turning him away, the Bishop does the unthinkable. He welcomes the convict inside. He calls him "Monsieur." He orders the best bed to be made, and he sets the dinner table with his most prized possession: heavy, ornate silver plates and cutlery. For the first time in nineteen years, Valjean is treated like a human being with inherent worth.
But Valjean’s heart is too hardened to understand this. He is trapped in a world of survival and transaction. In the middle of the night, while the house sleeps, the convict wakes up, stuffs the Bishop’s precious silver into his sack, and flees into the darkness.
He doesn’t get far.
The next morning, the police catch Valjean. They find the stolen silver in his bag and immediately recognize the yellow passport. It is an open-and-shut case. For a paroled convict, this crime means one thing: a life sentence back in the galleys. His life is effectively over. The police drag Valjean by the collar back to the Bishop’s door to confirm the theft, ready to throw him into a cell forever.
Valjean stands there, eyes cast down, bracing himself for the inevitable blow of the gavel. He knows exactly how this works. He broke the law; the law will now break him.
The Bishop walks to the door and looks at the police. Then, he looks at the man who betrayed him.
"Ah, there you are!" the Bishop cries out, his face radiating with genuine warmth. He steps toward Valjean, completely ignoring the officers. "I am glad to see you. But... I gave you the candlesticks, too, which are of silver like the rest, and would bring two hundred francs. Why did you not take them along with your plates?"1
The police are stunned. Valjean is paralyzed. His breath leaves his lungs.
The Bishop turns to the police and calmly explains that there has been a misunderstanding. The silver was not stolen; it was a gift. He insists they release the man immediately. The officers, baffled but unable to argue with the town's holy man, let go of Valjean and walk away.
The Bishop then fetches the heavy silver candlesticks, places them into Valjean's unsteady hands, and leans in close. "Do not forget, ever, that you have promised me to use this silver to become an honest man," he whispers. "Jean Valjean, my brother: you belong no longer to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I am buying for you."2
When Valjean is finally left alone, he collapses. He does not celebrate his freedom. He weeps with a violence he has never known.
Why? Because true grace is a violent, earth-shattering collision.
Valjean was fully prepared for punishment. He understood wrath. He understood the transactional scales of justice. But to be handed the highest possible value when he deserved the harshest possible penalty? It broke him. The Bishop’s scandalous, entirely unmerited generosity destroyed the bitter worldview Valjean had spent nineteen years building. He could no longer justify being a monster in a world where such radical love existed.
This is the terrifying, disorienting, and ultimately transformational power of God’s grace.
But there’s more. Grace isn’t God lowering the bar or pretending not to notice our mess. Grace is God seeing us at our worst, handing us the keys to the kingdom, and calling us His children. It feels scandalous because it is. For folks like us, who are used to earning our keep, standing in the bright light of that kind of love can be the hardest—and most beautiful—thing we’ll ever do.
I’ll admit, standing in the sunlight of God’s grace is not something that comes naturally to me. Like Valjean, I sometimes wonder if that kind of love could really be meant for someone like me. As I sit here writing (and yes, rewriting—more times than I care to count), I realize I’ve only begun to understand what it means to live in that light. I’m still working on it, and if you’re anything like me, you probably are too.
In fact, after more than forty years in ministry, I’ve seen how struggles like shame and addiction—topics I’ll be diving into in my next post—consistently keep us from stepping into that warmth. I am convinced that grace speaks directly to both, offering us freedom and growth. But to understand how we actually "grow" into that freedom, we have to look back at the design of our Christian Character Tree.
It all comes down to how the roots and branches interact with the world around them. You see, a tree—yes, even our Christian Character Tree—does not wake up in the morning, stretch out its branches, pour itself a cup of coffee, and declare, "Today I will make my own sunlight."
That would be ridiculous. And if you ever see a tree doing that, feel free to give me a call. I’d like to invite it to our next grandkid’s outdoor birthday party.
Everyone knows a tree doesn't create the sun. It doesn't negotiate with the sun. It doesn't earn the sun by trying harder, behaving better, or promising to become more leafy by Thursday. The tree simply stands under the light it has been given, receives what it cannot produce, and by a God-designed process, turns that light into life.
It’s just a picture—not a perfect one—but it gets us close enough to the ballpark to start understanding how God’s grace works in a believer’s life.
What Sunlight Does for a Tree
Sunlight isn’t just a nice bonus for a tree. Sunlight is as basic to a tree as sweet tea is to a Wednesday night church supper. Through photosynthesis—which is just a fancy way of saying the tree turns sunlight into food—the tree gets what it needs to grow.3
In other words, sunlight isn’t simply shining on the tree; sunlight is being used in the tree. The leaves receive it. The tree processes it. Energy becomes nourishment. Nourishment becomes strength. Strength becomes blooms. Blooms become fruit.
A tree that doesn’t get enough sunlight might look fine for a little while. But sooner or later, things start to go downhill. The leaves turn yellow, the branches get thin, and if there’s any fruit at all, it’s small and sour. Sometimes the tree doesn’t die right away—it just slowly becomes the kind of thing you wouldn’t want in your front yard.
The same goes for a lot of Christians. We’re not spiritually dead—we really do belong to Christ. But sometimes we end up living in the shade: the shade of hurry, guilt, fear, bitterness, self-reliance, or just plain old church busyness. We talk about grace in Sunday School, but then spend the rest of the week acting like it’s up to us to keep the lights on. And yes, I’m including myself in that.
Who We Are as Believers in Christ
A Christian is not simply a “religious person.” A Christian is someone united to Jesus Christ by faith: forgiven by His death, raised into new life by His resurrection, indwelt by His Spirit, adopted into His family, and called to become like Him.4
That means Christian growth isn’t just self-improvement with a few Bible verses sprinkled on top like parsley on a homemade mac and cheese. It’s not just behavior modification dressed up in a choir robe. Real growth is Christ’s life being formed in us by God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s not about looking more religious; it’s about becoming more like Jesus from the inside out.
Jesus gave us the vine-and-branches image: “Abide in me.” Branches do not bear fruit by detaching themselves and attending a motivational seminar. They bear fruit by remaining in the vine. In the same way, believers bear the fruit of the Spirit as we live in dependent union with Christ.5
Sinclair Ferguson says this more clearly. Sanctification is the outworking of union with Christ. Christ is not simply the One who points to holiness; He is the One in whom the holy life has been lived, died, raised, and made available to His people.6 Fruit begins with union, not self-manufacture.
C. S. Lewis gives us one of the best pictures of this in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. You may remember that Eustace Scrubb becomes a dragon because his inward greed and selfishness finally take outward shape. Then he tries to scrape off his own dragon skin. Layer after layer comes off, but underneath he is still a dragon. That is self-improvement in its Sunday clothes. It may polish the scales, but it cannot change the creature. Only Aslan can tear deeply enough to make Eustace a boy again.7
That is grace. It is tender, but it is not shallow. It goes deeper than our manners, our image, and our religious vocabulary. Christ does not simply tell dragons to act like better dragons. He makes dead sinners alive and begins making deformed people whole.
This is why we have to keep putting ourselves where we can soak up God’s grace. It’s not that God is stingy with grace. The problem is, we’re forgetful, distracted, and, to be honest, a little leaky. We drift. We get shaded. We turn following Jesus into a checklist and then wonder why our souls feel like last year’s flowerbed pine straw.
Jerry Bridges reminds us that the same grace that brings us to God also disciplines, trains, and transforms us. We are never beyond the reach of God’s grace, but we are also never beyond the need of God’s grace.8 Grace is not only the front door into the Christian life. Grace is the air and light in every room of the house.
Bridges sharpens this in his excellent and convicting book, Transforming Grace. He says many of us accept grace for salvation and then leave it behind in daily life, basing our relationship with God on performance instead of His love. Bridges warns that we are “legalistic by nature.”9 The tree version would be a sapling trying to earn sunrise by doing push-ups or something. God’s grace does not simply get us planted; it keeps us alive, free, and growing.
What Grace Is — and What We Often Get Wrong
In seminary, I learned that grace is often defined as “God’s unmerited favor.” That’s true, and we should never lose sight of it. We don’t earn grace. We don’t put God in our debt by being unusually impressive Baptists. Grace is gift from beginning to end.
But if we stop there, we end up treating grace like God’s cleanup crew. Grace becomes what shows up after we’ve made a mess—like the tow truck that pulls us out of the ditch, wipes the mud off the bumper, and sends us back down the road. Thank God, grace does that! But if that’s all we think grace is, we’ve traded the sun for a cheap flashlight.
Biblical grace is more. For the believer in Christ, grace is the undeserved favor and active power of God, secured by Jesus Christ and applied by the Holy Spirit, by which we are forgiven, accepted, trained, strengthened, transformed, and made fruitful in Christlike character.
At this point, allow me to make a careful, and I pray, helpful distinction. The Father causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good.10 That is real mercy, often called common grace. But here we are considering redemptive grace: God’s saving, transforming favor in Christ. Common grace keeps the world from collapsing into complete darkness. Redemptive grace raises dead sinners and grows living saints. Do you see the distinction?
The Apostle Paul does not speak of grace as a legal technicality and then moves on to the practical stuff. He says, “By the grace of God I am what I am,” and then adds that God’s grace toward him “was not in vain.” Why? Because grace made him labor — not apart from God, not instead of God, but because God’s grace was with him.11 That is not grace as a permission slip. That is grace as power. Power given to us.
Titus says the grace of God has appeared, “training us” to renounce ungodliness and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives.12 That is one of the clearest Bible passages for this whole subject. Grace trains. Grace not only blots out sin; it schools saints. Grace does not simply pardon what we were; it teaches us how to live as the people we now are in Christ.
C. S. Lewis makes the same point with his picture of the “obstinate toy soldiers” in Mere Christianity. God is not merely polishing the tin soldier. He is making the toy into a real man. To the toy soldier, that may feel like being spoiled or ruined, because grace does not flatter the old self. It gives a better life by putting the old one to death.13
Bryan Chapell helps us here by refusing to separate holiness from grace. Obedience is not the way we purchase God’s love; obedience is the grateful response of those who have already received God’s mercy.14 In tree language, fruit does not buy sunshine. Fruit is what happens when the tree lives in the light.
Dallas Willard gives another needed correction. Yes, I may have used this quote by Willard in just about every blog in this series, but it still applies: “grace is not opposed to effort; it is opposed to earning.”15 I use it so much because it rescues us from two ditches: legalism, where we obey so God will love us, and passivity, where effort sounds suspicious. One is a treadmill. The other is a beanbag chair. Neither looks much like the New Testament.
Willard also gave a disruptive picture of grace: “The true saint burns grace like a 747 jet burns fuel on takeoff.” Holy living takes more grace, not less. Every holy act must be upheld by God’s active presence.16 The more we love enemies, forgive wounds, resist temptation, and serve without applause, the more grace we are consuming. What a radical thought! But it gets even better.
You see, that changes how we think about maturity. Spiritual maturity doesn’t mean you need less grace. It means you become the kind of person who can receive and apply more of Jesus' grace in your life. The more you grow, the more you realize how much you need what only God can give.
A Few Bad Substitutes for Grace
Instead of plugging into the power of God’s grace, we often come up with our own substitutes. Some of these are understandable, some are just plain wrong, and some are the kind of ideas that make you shake your head and wonder how we got there.
First, grace is not God pretending sin is no big deal. That is not grace; that is moral anesthesia. Grace is costly. It comes to us through the blood of Christ.
Second, grace is not permission to remain childish, selfish, angry, proud, or spiritually lazy. Anyone who says, “I’m under grace, so I can do whatever I want,” has not understood grace. That is like saying, “I live under sunshine, so I think I’ll move into a basement and lick mildew.”
Third, grace is not opposed to obedience. Grace produces obedience from the inside out. John MacArthur is right to warn that true grace does not leave a person’s character untouched.17 Biblical grace is tender, but it is not indulgent. It forgives the rebel, yes. But it does not leave the rebel in charge.
Fourth, grace is not simply God being “nice.” R. C. Sproul put it succinctly: “The essence of theology is grace; the essence of Christian ethics is gratitude.”18 That is exactly right. Grace gives, and gratitude responds. The whole Christian life is downstream from gift.
Philip Yancey, due to his current problems, I imagine, would confirm this even more. He names what many people feel but cannot fully describe: “ungrace.” Ungrace is the world’s default setting. You earn your place, manage your image, and get what you deserve. Yancey has called grace “one of the great, often untapped powers of the universe.”19 Grace breaks that economy. It is not fair, given how sinners usually demand fairness. It is better than fair.
Charles Swindoll’s The Grace Awakening also pushes back against legalistic, performance-oriented bondage. His burden could be summarized by the line, “Believing in grace is one thing; living it is another.”20 Some churches treat grace like fine print: “Yes, you are saved by grace, but report immediately to the treadmill of proving yourself.” No wonder people are tired.
True grace is a lot like sunlight. It comes from outside us. It’s freely given. It wakes up life, exposes what’s sick, strengthens what’s weak, helps us grow, and produces fruit. And the tree never brags, “You’re welcome, sun. I really helped you shine today.” The tree just stands there and soaks it in—and that’s enough.
How We Frustrate the Grace of God
Even with all this, we still try to add something to God’s grace. When we do, we end up frustrating the grace of God in our lives.
The King James Version of Galatians 2:21, Paul says, “I do not frustrate the grace of God.”21 That is a powerful phrase. We cannot overpower grace, as if our foolishness were stronger than God’s mercy. But we can resist grace, neglect grace, distort grace, or step out of alignment with the grace God gives.
We frustrate grace when we slip back into legalism. That happens when we start measuring our standing with God by our performance: “If I had a good quiet time, God likes me today. If I missed it, He’s probably up in heaven with His arms folded.” That’s not Christianity. That’s just spiritual weather forecasting with a guilty conscience.
We frustrate grace by holding onto bitterness. Bitterness is like choosing to stand in the shade and then complaining that the sun isn’t working. You can know all the right doctrine, but if your heart is resentful, you’re not receiving grace deeply enough to pass it along.
We frustrate grace by relying on ourselves. A lot of us trust God for heaven, but not for Tuesday. We believe Jesus can raise the dead, but somehow think He needs our help dealing with that one difficult person at church. So we worry, we scheme, we rehearse speeches in the shower, and call it being responsible.
Churches can frustrate grace together, too. A church can talk about grace all day long, but still reward polish, image management, and the illusion that everyone has it all together. That’s not grace. That’s just putting on a show, and it’s terrible for fruit. Nobody grows well in a place where everyone is pretending.
Lewis gives another warning in The Great Divorce through the ghost of the artist. The artist once loved the light he glimpsed in creation, but eventually loved his painting more than the light, then his own reputation more than the painting. That is what happens when ministry, doctrine, music, writing, preaching, or “being known for being spiritual” becomes more important than God Himself.22 We do not have to be famous to fall into that ditch. A church committee can do it in one meeting.
John Frame reminds us that in Scripture, commands and promises belong together.23 Grace doesn't cancel corrective instruction; it changes the tone. The order matters: redemption first, then response; grace first, then obedience. When that order gets flipped, people become proud if they think they are doing well and exhausted if they know they're not.
Neither one is fruit.
How to Bask in Grace and Draw Power for Christlike Living
Now, let’s get practical about how to draw on the power of God’s grace. If you’ve made it this far, I think you’ll find the following steps both biblical and, I hope, helpful for standing in the sunlight of God’s grace.
First, stand every day in the finished work of Christ. Before you look at your failures, look at your Savior. Before you check your fruit, remember your root. You’re not accepted because you’re fruitful. You become fruitful because you’re accepted in Christ.
Second, bring your actual sins into the light. Not vague religious-sounding fog. Say the thing: pride, envy, lust, resentment, fear, control, grumbling, self-protection. Hebrews calls believers to draw near to the throne of grace for mercy and help.24 That is not a throne for people who have it together. It is a throne for people who need grace.
Third, stay near the ordinary places where grace is held out: the Word, prayer, worship, confession, community, the Lord’s Supper, service, generosity, silence, and obedience. Willard called spiritual disciplines activities within our power that enable us to do what we cannot do by direct effort.25 They do not manufacture grace. They are leaves opening to the sun.
Fourth, refuse both despair and presumption. Despair says, “I’ll never change.” Presumption says, “I don’t need to.” Grace says, “God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”26
Fifth, quit living with a hurry-shaped soul. Willard often warned against “hurry” because it trains us to trust in our own speed rather than in God’s presence. “Hurry is the great enemy of the spiritual life in our day.”27 Hurry keeps the soul in the shade. Grace grows best in people who learn to slow down long enough to receive what God is giving.28
Sixth, learn to receive grace in suffering. A tree’s deep roots are not formed only in perfect weather. David Powlison shows that God’s grace enters our particular troubles as the presence, purpose, and faithfulness of God in pain. He summarizes this burden well: God’s grace “goes deeper than we could ever imagine.”29 Grace may not explain every storm, but it keeps the roots from coming loose.
Seventh, let grace teach forbearance. Piper’s compost-pile picture is earthy but useful: in marriage, church, and family life, we carry real offenses to the compost pile of forgiveness rather than spreading them across the living room.30 Grace does not deny the mess. It redeems it.
Eighth, stay planted with God’s people. A lone tree might look dramatic on a hill, but believers aren’t designed for isolated holiness. We grow in the orchard of the church. Yes, church folks can be difficult. That’s only surprising if you’ve never met people. But grace often grows us through the very people who require us to practice patience, forgiveness, and humility.
Ninth, obey the next clear command. Do not wait until you feel spiritually impressive. Forgive the person. Make the call. Tell the truth. Stop feeding the habit. Encourage the discouraged. Open your Bible. Apologize without adding a courtroom defense. Grace strengthens obedience as we step into obedience.
John Piper’s language of “future grace” keeps grace pointed toward the next act of obedience, not only the last failure forgiven. Piper argues that we live moment by moment from the strength God keeps supplying.31 Tomorrow’s sorrow, temptation, apology, endurance, or love will require tomorrow’s grace. And God will not run out before morning.
Sam Storms adds some needed warmth. In his book, The Steadfast Love of the Lord, he helps believers receive God’s steadfast love as something the Holy Spirit presses into their hearts. Cold doctrine rarely ripens sweet fruit. When I looked at Storms’s book table of contents, the chapter titles are almost a sermon themselves: God’s love is “much more,” “sin-killing,” and “soul-preserving.” In a related article, he puts it plainly: “Pleasure in God is the power for purity.”32 Grace not only restrains sin; it gives the soul a better joy.
Dane Ortlund keeps this from becoming another chore list. In his book, Deeper, he argues that sanctification does not happen primarily by doing more, trying harder, or becoming a shinier, more religious version of ourselves. Ortlund writes that “the wraparound category of your life is not your performance but God’s love.”33 The answer is not, “Go become an oak by yelling at your acorn.” The answer is, “Go deeper into Christ.”
Some of the deepest changes God makes don’t occur in a single dramatic moment. They happen in the long obedience of daily exposure. A woman keeps bringing fear into the light. A man keeps confessing old pride until it no longer runs the show. A church keeps preaching Christ, praying, forgiving, singing, and gathering at the Table until the people become softer, steadier, cleaner, and harder to provoke.
That is sunlight.
The Orchard Lives Because the Sun Keeps Rising
Fruit doesn’t grow because the tree yells at itself, feels ashamed, goes to a weekend conference, or buys a new leather bound journal. Fruit grows because the tree is rooted in good soil, stands open to the light, and receives life it didn’t create.
Grace forgives. Grace welcomes. Grace trains. Grace strengthens. Grace gives us what God commands, and it teaches us to walk in it. Grace shines, warms, exposes, awakens, and ripens. It will humble you because you can’t produce it. It will also give you hope because God keeps giving it.
The orchard lives because the sun keeps rising.
And the Christian grows because God hasn’t just pitied us from a distance. He has drawn near in Christ with pardon for the guilty, power for the weak, and light for the road ahead.
So stay in the light. Open your leaves. Quit trying to earn the sunshine. Don’t hide in the shade or blame the other trees in the orchard. Receive the grace of God in Christ, and allow the Spirit to do His deep work.
And in time, by grace, there will be fruit. Count on it.
Endnotes
1. Victor Hugo, Les Misérables. Translated by Charles E. Wilbour, vol. 1 (Fantine), book 2, ch. 12.
2. Ibid, vol. 1 (Fantine), book 2, ch.12.
3. Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Photosynthesis,” online reference, accessed May 1, 2026, https://www.britannica.com/science/photosynthesis.
4. Galatians 2:20; Romans 8:29; 2 Corinthians 3:18. Scripture quotations and allusions are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version [ESV], (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016), unless otherwise noted.
5. John 15:1-11; Galatians 5:22-25.
6. Sinclair B. Ferguson, “The Reformed View of Sanctification,” Union Publishing, July 20, 2021, especially the sections “Union with Christ,” “Union and Sanctification,” and “A New Creation.” See also Sinclair B. Ferguson, Devoted to God: Blueprints for Sanctification (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2016), especially chs. 1-3 on union with Christ and the foundational structures of sanctification.
7. C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1952; later HarperCollins editions), ch. 7, “How the Adventure Ended.”
8. Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace: God’s Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2018 ed.), especially ch. 3, “Preach the Gospel to Yourself,” pp. 35-52; ch. 5, “Disciplined by Grace,” pp. 71-86; ch. 6, “Transformed into His Likeness,” pp. 87-104; and ch. 8, “Dependent Discipline,” pp. 121-140.
9. Jerry Bridges, Transforming Grace: Living Confidently in God’s Unfailing Love (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1991/1993 editions), Preface, p. 11, and ch. 1, “The Performance Treadmill,” beginning p. 15; see especially p. 16 for Bridges’s warning that believers naturally think performance earns blessing from God.
10. Matthew 5:45. See also R. C. Sproul, “Common Grace,” Ligonier Ministries, Foundations: An Overview of Systematic Theology, published March 28, 2026, which distinguishes common grace from special, God-saving grace.
11. 1 Corinthians 15:10. See also Bridges, The Discipline of Grace, ch. 5, “Disciplined by Grace,” pp. 71-86.
12. Titus 2:11-14.
13. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1952; later HarperOne editions), book 4, ch. 5, “The Obstinate Toy Soldiers”.
14. Bryan Chapell, Holiness by Grace: Delighting in the Joy That Is Our Strength (Wheaton: Crossway, 2001; redesigned ed. 2011), especially Part One, “Principles of Grace,” chs. 1-2; Part Two, “Practices of Faith,” chs. 3-6; and Part Three, “Motives of Love,” chs. 7-10.
15. Dallas Willard, “Spiritual Disciplines and Means of Grace: Contrast or Continuum,” Dallas Willard Ministries, accessed April 13, 2026, https://dwillard.org/resources/articles/spiritual-disciplines-and-means-of-grace-contrast-or-continuum.
16. Dallas Willard, The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus’s Essential Teachings on Discipleship (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006), p. 62.
17. John MacArthur, “True Faith and True Grace,” Grace to You, accessed April 13, 2026, https://www.gty.org/articles/A317/true-faith-and-true-grace.
18. R. C. Sproul, “What Is Grace?” Ligonier Ministries, November 19, 2021, https://learn.ligonier.org/articles/what-grace.
19. Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace? revised and updated ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2023), especially the introductory framing and chapters on “ungrace,” forgiveness, and the church as a culture of grace. See also Philip Yancey’s official book page for the revised edition, https://philipyancey.com/books/whats-so-amazing-about-grace, where Yancey describes grace as “one of the great, often untapped powers of the universe.”
20. Charles R. Swindoll, The Grace Awakening (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1990; later Thomas Nelson editions), especially the sections contrasting grace with legalistic, performance-oriented bondage.
21. Galatians 2:21, KJV. For the wider argument, see Galatians 2:15-21 and 3:1-14.
22. Lewis, The Great Divorce, ch. 9.
23. John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Christian Life (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008), excerpt PDF, accessed April 20, 2026, https://frame-poythress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/John-Frame-Doctrine-of-the-Christian-Life-Excerpt.pdf.
24. Hebrews 4:16.
25. Willard, “Spiritual Disciplines and Means of Grace: Contrast or Continuum.” See also Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart: Putting On the Character of Christ (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2002), especially ch. 5, where Willard develops the pattern of vision, intention, and means for transformation.
26. Philippians 2:12-13.
27. John Mark Comer, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry (USA: Waterbrook, 2019), p.19
28. Dallas Willard, “The Human Body and Spiritual Growth,” Dallas Willard Ministries, accessed April 20, 2026, https://dwillard.org/resources/articles/the-human-body-and-spiritual-growth. See also Willard, Renovation of the Heart, chs. 4-6, for his treatment of the will, body, and habits in spiritual formation.
29. David Powlison, God’s Grace in Your Suffering (Wheaton: Crossway, 2018), especially ch. 4, “I Am with You,” ch. 5, “I Am with You for a Purpose,” ch. 6, “My Loving Purpose Is Your Transformation,” and ch. 8, “I Will Never Fail You.”
30. “The Compost Pile: An Analogy of Forgiveness and Forbearance in Marriage,” Desiring God Community Church, January 29, 2013.
31. John Piper, Future Grace: The Purifying Power of the Promises of God, rev. ed. (Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2012), especially ch. 4, “The Life That’s Left Is Future Grace,” pp. 63-72, especially p. 71 on living moment by moment from the strength of future grace; ch. 21, “Faith in Future Grace vs. Bitterness,” pp. 261-274; ch. 22, “Creating Love in a Desire Factory,” pp. 275-286; and ch. 23, “Loving Ministry More than Life,” pp. 287-298, especially pp. 291-295 on God working in us to will and work, future grace as the power of the living Christ, spiritual gifts as channels of grace, and prayer as the way to find well-timed help from the throne of grace.
32. Sam Storms, The Steadfast Love of the Lord: Experiencing the Life-Changing Power of God’s Unchanging Affection (Wheaton: Crossway, 2025), especially ch. 6, “Strengthened by the Spirit to Enjoy God’s Love”; ch. 10, “The ‘Much More’ Love of God”; ch. 11, “The Incalculable, Insurmountable, Sin-Killing, Soul-Preserving Love of God”; and the conclusion, “May the Lord Direct Your Heart into the Love of God.”
33. Dane C. Ortlund, Deeper: Real Change for Real Sinners (Wheaton: Crossway, 2021), especially the introduction and chs. 1, “Jesus”; 3, “Union”; 4, “Embrace”; and 9, “Supernaturalized.” See p. 83 in the Crossway paperback for the phrase “the wraparound category of your life is not your performance but God’s love.”
