Through His Grace, We Grow to Know Who We are in Christ

"10But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." (! Corinthians 15: 10)

We are who we are by the grace of God (1 Corinthians 15: 10), and as we grow to know the Lord, we cannot but also grow to know more of His grace:

"17For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." (John 1: 17)

Grace and truth are met in Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life for every believer (John 14: 6)

This forgiveness is not just grace unleashed and lavish, one which we grow in receiving, but a grace which has made us a new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5: 17)

Paul explains in a few verses prior:

"But ye have not so learned Christ; 21If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: 22That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; 23And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; 24And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." (Ephesians 4: 20-24)

In Christ, we are a new man, righteous and holy, because we are in Christ, who is made to us righteousness and holiness (1 Corinthians 1: 30)

When we reckon ourselves dead to sin but alive in God through Christ (Romans 6:11), then we receive the standing and the power to follow the rest of all that Paul outlines to the Ephesians:

"31Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: 32And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." (Ephesians 4: 31-32)

The grace of God makes us not just a new creation (2 Corinthians 5: 17), but one with Christ:

"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4:10)

and

"Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world." (1 John 4: 17)