{"id":14824,"date":"2026-06-13T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/?p=14824"},"modified":"2026-04-23T06:54:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T11:54:52","slug":"joy-in-grace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/2026\/06\/13\/joy-in-grace\/","title":{"rendered":"Joy in Grace"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Two-minute read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"940\" height=\"788\" src=\"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/June-13th.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-14825\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/June-13th.png 940w, https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/June-13th-300x251.png 300w, https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/June-13th-768x644.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 940px) 100vw, 940px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Grace means unearned favor, kindness we didn\u2019t earn and can\u2019t repay. Nothing we do can earn the salvation we receive from Jesus. Salvation begins and ends with God\u2019s initiative, not a reward for effort, but an act of love. Accepting the gift can challenge any of us, knowing our sins, it can seem hard to believe the Lord would give so freely, but He does. God knows, we can\u2019t do it ourselves; He must do it for us. And praise Jesus, He does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Through faith, we receive the gift, trusting the Father\u2019s words and the Son\u2019s actions. We don\u2019t need a perfect belief to accept salvation; we have to trust Jesus rather than ourselves. Faith doesn\u2019t earn salvation; rather, it opens our hands to receive it. Developing a Biblical worldview means looking at life through the lens of scripture. The journey begins when we receive salvation through Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since we can\u2019t earn our salvation, we can\u2019t boast about it. Submitting our lives to the Savior means admitting we need His help because we can\u2019t rescue ourselves. God gives us the faith to believe and the salvation we cannot achieve on our own. In our humanness, we battle pride, but by giving our lives to Jesus, we learn humility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We must accept the gift we can\u2019t earn. When we do, our relationship with God changes. We no longer strive to earn His approval because He has already given it to us. Only Jesus gets credit for our salvation, no one else. In Christ, we all receive the same gift, which removes comparison, pride, and pressure. Instead of focusing on what we have done, we focus on what the Lord did for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You don\u2019t have to prove yourself to God. Instead, you can accept His invitation to trust His Son and receive the gift He offers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">Reflection:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Are you trying to earn something that God is offering as a gift?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">Joy Thought:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Grace means you can stop striving<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two-minute read. Grace means unearned favor, kindness we didn\u2019t earn and can\u2019t repay. Nothing we do can earn the salvation we receive from Jesus. Salvation begins and ends with God\u2019s initiative, not a reward for effort, but an act of love. Accepting the gift can challenge any of us, knowing our sins, it can seem&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/2026\/06\/13\/joy-in-grace\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Joy in Grace<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","without-featured-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14824"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14827,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14824\/revisions\/14827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}