John Wesleys

Three types of grace.

(I first learned of these on my walk to Emmaus)

Prevenient Grace

This is the radio waves of God that are always out there for us to receive if we choose. They are available to us from birth. It's the sense that something larger than ourselves is at play in our lives. Ever watch a young child while he or she didn't know you were watching and they were doing something they shouldn't have been doing but nobody had even told them it was wrong? When you ask them to stop they look all shocked like "I knew I shouldn't have been doing that". Ever wonder where that came from? Prevenient Grace.

 "God’s grace enables us to discern differences between good and evil and makes it possible for us to choose good…."

Justifying Grace

 This is when the light switch is flipped and we become a different person in Christ. Now we have willingly accepted Grace. It's the conversion moment and redemption all rolled into one. We were listening to the radio message and we accepted it. It could happen in an instant or it could have been building up for years and finally reached it's climactic state.

  "It may be sudden and dramatic, or gradual and cumulative"

 

Sanctifying Grace

If justifying grace was a candle being lit, or a light bulb being switched to "on"? Then sanctifying Grace is a chandelier. Justifying Grace having grown and matured into such.

"Salvation is not a static, one-time event in our lives. It is the ongoing experience of God’s gracious presence transforming us into whom God intends us to be."

 

:-).

 

Love you Lucy.

What we believe, our Wesleyan heritage.