The great response

The hardest part about starting this story lies in my inability to fully grasp the grace of God. My father once said that grace and mercy work hand in hand. Grace is not getting what we do deserve whereas mercy is getting what we do not deserve. So, the grace of God is simply that. We have been given the chance to interact with God even though we do not deserve it. We are sinful beings. We fail. We mess up. We are created with a natural tendency to depravity. The common saying is that to err is human. I think this is one of the biggest copouts. As Paul writes to the Romans in chapter seven, "For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me." So we have a sinful nature. That's what grace is; it is that God is giving us the ability to draw close to him even though we have no real ability to do so because our sinfulness should keep us out of God's good graces, pun intended.

Couple that idea with the notion of entitlement. We live in a society of give me and getting what I deserve. We feel like it is necessary of God, or whatever higher being we pray to, to give us the "desires of our heart." We feel like we can earn whatever we want, and if we just work hard enough, it will come true. Like working in any organization, hard work normally pays off, but that's not necessarily how God operates. I think the reason why I, and many other Christians, cannot grasp grace is that we live in a work-based society. God simply wants our relationship. He wants our attention. So that's why he sent his son, Jesus, the ultimate sacrifice, as an offering of grace to mankind. It's just hard to comprehend. So the great response to this great grace comes down to us. We must recognize that God gives grace, simple as that. 
I remember learning in chemistry about the theory of entropy, an idea that things naturally move to lower energy states. And I'm going to apply this to our own lives, that it is easier to not work. This may seem paradoxical with what I mentioned earlier, but man's natural desire is to work less because it requires less energy. So work-based society along with mankind's natural entropy creates a sort of dichotomy. It creates tension. So when we apply that to our relationship with God, we think that if we are working, then we are doing what we should be doing in response to his grace. However, I think the opposite is true. The great response to God's initial invitation to relationship lies not in works but a total soul changing due only in part to the works of the Holy Spirit in us. To err is human, I agree, but the best response to grace is to allow the Holy Spirit to mold and shape us into better people, better followers of Christ. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that we should let God do the work. We should not have to just work so hard in vain because God has already done all of that for us. That's what grace is. It is that God knows our sinful nature, knows our limitations, and he invites us to take part in his kingdom regardless. This world is too hard on our own. It will easily wear us out, but if we just let God into our lives and reshape our thinking, our actions will be less individually driven and more kingdom oriented.