1 Corinthians 15:10 (NIV) | But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.
The direction your life takes is affected by many things, such as the environment in which you live, the decisions you make, and the education you receive. But by far the most powerful influence in a believer’s life is the transforming grace of God, which is His kindness toward you—regardless of your worthiness and in spite of everything you deserve.
God’s ultimate will is for every believer to be conformed to the likeness of His Son. His grace is responsible for your rebirth, and from that point it directs, moves, and influences you to become increasingly Christ-like. In that way, you can say with the apostle Paul, “By the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Cor. 15:10).
The apostle’s life, in fact, is a powerful example of God’s transforming grace. In Philippians 3, Paul describes how he once depended on his good works, nature, and conduct to gain acceptance before God. He did not originally understand there’s only one way to be made acceptable in God’s sight—by His grace.
However, encountering the living Christ totally changed Paul, and he explained, “Whatever things were gain to me, those things I have [now] counted as loss for the sake of Christ” (Phil. 3:7). He recognized that all of his human titles and achievements had absolutely no spiritual value. We, too, must realize we’ll never gain eternity by depending on anything we are or anything we do. It’s by grace, and grace alone, that we are saved (Eph. 2:8-9).
It was the grace of God that shaped Paul’s thinking. He learned that everything he once had counted as valuable was actually worthless. What made the difference was the fact that Paul came face-to-face with the Savior on the Damascus Road. And when he heard the voice of God speaking to him, he dropped to his knees in adoration and surrender.
May the same be true of us.