There are two kinds of "grace:"
- "Reassuring Grace"
- "Replacement Grace."
Most of us think that God's offer is limited to reassuring us of his forgiveness, or reminding us of his "unmeritted favor." We're drawn to the comfort of "living loved," "God's not angry with you," and "resting in him." This kind of grace, while putting us at ease with God and removing the anxiety that comes with religious performance, is not the best part of God's offer.
More immediately hopeful than even Reassuring Grace is "Replacement Grace." Why? Because "Reassuring Grace" by itself is cruel: Like comforting a cancer patient without attempting to cure the cancer that's destroying her.
That sick person needs the cancer to be gone if her body is to function at-ease. She needs restoration. [* I realize that in the physical world of sickness, "victory" doesn't always mean removal of the disease. However, in the spiritual world, the world of our heart or core nature, victory can and does mean the immediate removal of the diseased organ - in this case, our diseased, sin-sick spirit/heart.]
While reassuring that patient that you love her and will comfort her certainly helps her, what she really needs is a new lung, or whatever organ is ransacked with death.
So God, in addition to reassuring us with his gracious love, replaces the diseased core within us: he replaces our old, wandering and sin-sick heart with a new, supernaturally-good and noble heart.
The grace that replaces is even better than the grace that reassures.