Click for audio: The Truth About Grace
To assist in sorting through those elements of our religious training that may or may not be true, it’s helpful to start with a baseline concerning the nature of God. For example, can our thoughts and actions influence the way God behaves? If we do our best to walk the straight and narrow, will God grant us special blessings?
I recently spoke with a woman whose husband finally got a good-paying job. She said, “I think God has seen how we’ve struggled, that we really try to be good people and do the right thing. This really feels like a God thing.”
This seems perfectly logical, and a lot of people endorse the idea. But then a Jesus comes along and says something like this: “… for he makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). Is he saying God is as willing to help the evil and the unjust as the good and the just? Or is he simply saying, God is changeless?
The notion of grace, in its highest form, is really an acknowledgement of the changeless nature of God. Unfortunately, the general understanding of grace, at least in Christian thinking, is that it is a free and unmerited favor of God. We don’t deserve it, but God loves us and will do the occasional favor for us anyway.
In truth, grace is simply God being God. Whether we live with our mind and heart open to the presence of God has no more bearing on God’s behavior than it would on bringing sunshine or rain.
If you have a situation in your life that needs a resolution, try dropping all thought around the idea that God is trying to teach you something, or that you probably deserve this problem but you would like God’s help anyway. Focus instead on the truth that God is changeless love and light, and that God is now working through you in the most marvelous way to resolve your situation. Affirm the following:
By grace I am lifted above all fear, all struggle, all doubt that God’s greatest good is now unfolding through me. Thank you God, that this is true!
J Douglas Bottorff 
Many times in my younger days, the results of my actions could have turned out much worse. That they didn’t, and that I learned in each case not to do that again, has caused me to think that I was passing through a refresher course, before I escaped into a more sensible and successful way of living. For many years I have felt that I live in God’s grace just by accepting the good that comes from whatever I do.
You do live in God’s grace. Thanks for sharing.
Appreciate the comment above. Totally agree!
I am getting two different emails where the “comment” sections do not seem to link up – one from The Complete Soul and another from Unity Talks Online, so I’m sending this to both:
“Just had the opportunity to listen to this. What a wealth of spiritual wisdom and “grace.” I have been led to this same understanding of grace: it is the activity of God/Spirit in us. Thank you for putting your messages online. I listen and receive so much from them!”
Thank you for your feedback. Technology has some wonderful advantages. I appreciate your comment on both sites.
Dear and treasured Doug…..Months have come and gone, Time flies.. whether having fun or not. (See me smiling) And you continue onward, upward, steadily, diligently working toward enlightenment and making clear the highest teachings. That alone has led this writer to far more appreciation than I am oft wont to express. Let it be said now, however, so that you know you are never honestly taken for granted.
And–with that said, I wanted to pass along a comment that was made to me. I said something to some one awhile back about how I yearned for some newer inspired writers to step out, bright forth new perspectives and add to our already treasure trove of immortal words– that I did not perceive any one crossing my path doing that. His quiet retort–and this was a non-Unity theologian who said, “…. oh yes there is– you have someone who is doing the world and his peers quite a favor: he is providing that inspirationally inspired writing you seek, and that author is Douglas Bottorff –do you know him?” Ah, of course, I know him–we were classmates!! Thanking him then, I now send those soothing tidings onward to you. Today’s offerring from you is a no-nonsense-of-course practical application of the truth as we surely know it. May the Light forever shine bringing forth the forgotten fervor of years gone by.
Colleen, please thank your friend for those kind words. I think it will take a “non-Unity theologian” to get what I’ve been talking about at this stage in my life. Thanks for sharing this.