'Grace' is often thought of only as unmerited favour from God by which He freely forgives us our sins when we go to Him pleading the blood of Jesus shed for us. But there is more to grace than this. He.4:16 talks about going to the throne of grace for two things – mercy in the form of forgiveness of sins and help in our time of need. While we do need mercy, we must also look at grace as God's help for us in every kind of situation.
Every single one of us has sinned, and there is no way anyone can get acceptance from God by being good enough (Ro.3:20). So grace provides us a way of acceptance as a generous gesture from God. After that, it is not that we can go on living our life as we used to before, doing whatever we like whether it is sin or not. Now God has given us a heart that wants to be pleasing to Him (Je.31:33). We no longer want to sin. In other words, we now want to obey everything that God tells us. We must understand that this obedience comes from our new heart because of our love for God, and not because we want to obey Him in order to find acceptance!
So, under the new covenant we have been set free from the demands of the Law. But that doesn't mean we don't have to abide under any law! Now God has written His laws into our heart because of which we like to do what they say (Ro.7:6). Just as many children don't like it when parents tell them to stop playing and start studying, people who haven't come into grace think that the law is a burden. But when they understand that the law is meant for their good, to bring them blessings (De.28:1,2) and to protect them from calamities (v.15), then they want to obey! That's why the Bible says that the law was meant for the lawless, to keep them within bounds (1Ti.1:8,9).
But when we now try to obey God, we find that our old sinful nature is fighting against it (Ro.7:21). The Holy Spirit who is now in our heart joins this fight on our side (Ga.5:17). We soon find out that without His help we are unable to overcome the strong desires that come up from our flesh. But then, grace is the help the Holy Spirit gives us to put our sinful desires to death and do the will of God (Ro.8:13).
Now we are not without any law, even though we have been set free from the old demands of the law that made us feel that somehow we have to find acceptance from God. We now have the law of the Spirit of life in Christ in us (Ro.8:2). This law goes deeper into our heart that the old covenant laws. Earlier it was OK if we felt like killing someone if we finally didn't actually kill him (Mt.5:21,22). Now we know we can't be pleasing to God if we look at people with lust in our heart even if we keep ourselves free from having any physical relationship with them (vv.27,28). Even though this law in our heart is higher than that of the old covenant, we get empowered to keep it when we lean on grace (help) that we receive from the Holy Spirit.
Let's make full use of the grace of God in our life!