Dustin
This can be found at http://www.desiringgod.org
What do you mean by "future grace"?
I don't just mean grace that comes to us in the distant future, like at the Second Coming. Clearly that is coming. It is referred to in 1 Peter 1:13, that we are to hope fully in the grace that is coming to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So there is going to be great grace for us at the Judgment Day because we believe in Jesus.
What I have in mind when I say "future grace" is the grace we'll receive at the Second Coming and the grace that is arriving every moment as I move into the future. So, whether I will be able to finish giving this answer is owing to the sustaining grace of God.
A key verse for me in understanding this is 1 Corinthians 15:10, where Paul says,
By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.
Now if you stop and think about it, that means that minute by minute we're working. But are we working in our own strength? No, he says, "I'm working hard, but it is not I but the grace of God." So when is that grace of God coming? It's coming every moment. It is arriving, as it were, out there in the future.
So as I think about a difficult phone call I have to make in five minutes, or about getting out of bed, or of enduring another day of sickness, or a hard marriage, or another day of a wonderful thing, I shouldn't think that I'm going to be left alone for that. There's going to be a grace sufficient for every good deed, as it says in 2 Corinthians 9:8. God gives us a grace for every good deed.
So future grace is God's power, provision, mercy, and wisdom—everything we need—in order to do what he wants us to do five minutes, five weeks, five months, five years, and five thousand years from now.
© Desiring God
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