Can grace somehow be defined as power? And can we then we then follow certain steps to get more grace/power from God? The pastor at a Baptist church we visited recently certainly thinks so. Here’s a little snippet from his sermon :

…We take our faith and we direct it to God. It doesn’t take a lot of faith, because God has a lot of power, a lot of grace, that will come through that pipe no matter how small it is. And God’s grace can do a lot. So God’s grace equals power in our life.

The question then becomes, how do we get more of that power? Because what Christian in their right mind is going to say they don’t want that? The solution, according to this pastor, is found in eight easy steps taken from James 4:6-12 which starts out “God gives grace to the humble”. These then would be the practical steps to achieve that goal :

• Relinquish control of your life
• Resist the devil and he will flee
• Renounce sinful actions
• Restore worship
• Reject a sinful attitude
• Refrain from a frivolous attitude
• Respond humbly to [spiritual] success
• Refuse to slander your brother

Funny thing is, Camille posted on this exact thing a few days before we visited this church. And my response on her post fits this one as well. His basic mistake is treating grace as a force rather than as an unchanging part of God’s character. When you start making a separation between the two you start treating grace as a power source to be tapped into and it just goes downhill from there. It becomes all about you and what you need to do to get that power.

At least that’s what I think. What about you guys?