This article is a summary of the following episode: Losing the War on Grace
There is a reason this topic has been pressing on me. It feels like we have lost something essential in the life of the church. Not a minor preference. Not a style issue. Something central to spiritual survival.
We have lost the emphasis of grace. And when grace loses its place, the church loses her strength.
The war is not over. Christ has already won. Yet many Christians are living as if they have been left to fight on their own. They wake up under weight, under pressure, under shame, under fear. They assume the answer has to be more effort, more intensity, more self-management, more personal grit. They try to muscle their way through temptation, suffering, discouragement, and doubt.
Then they wonder why they feel exhausted.
How We Drifted into a Physical Christianity
If you step back and look at the modern church, a pattern shows up. The energy often goes toward what can be seen and measured.
Moralism becomes the engine. Practical living becomes the selling point. Sermons become coaching sessions. The goal becomes a better marriage, better parenting, better habits, better influence, better outcomes.
Politics gets woven in as if power can be secured by strategy. Entertainment becomes a substitute for reverence. Some churches motivate through inspiration. Some motivate through fear. In both cases, the focus is usually the same.
What do you need to do next?
That kind of Christianity feels natural in our time because we live in a world that has trained us to trust what we can see. We measure life with physical metrics. We assess our spiritual condition through external evidence. We treat the church like a system that produces results, and we treat grace like a word we use after failure.
Then the gospel becomes a tool for getting started rather than the power that sustains us every day.
The Supernatural Nature of the Christian Life
Scripture refuses to let us reduce faith to the visible realm.
Peter speaks of divine power. The writer of Hebrews describes the Word of God as living and active, cutting down to the marrow. Paul teaches that spiritual warfare is real, organized, and relentless.
Ephesians 6 does not describe a conflict that can be solved by human strength. Galatians 3 exposes the insanity of trying to live by the flesh after beginning by the Spirit.
Paul uses a startling word in Galatians. He says they were bewitched. That is not casual language. He is describing spiritual deception. He is describing demonic strategy.
If the enemy can convince Christians that the Christian life runs on effort, then he has cut them off from the true source of power.
Losing Grace Means Losing Strength
Satan understands what many believers forget. Grace is not a soft religious idea. Grace is the power of Christ at work for His people.
That is why the enemy does not always fight by pushing obvious wickedness. He often fights by shifting emphasis. He can keep the church busy with good things while starving her of the one thing she cannot live without.
Doctrine matters, yet doctrine without the living application of Christ can become cold performance. Justice matters, yet justice without grace can turn into self-righteousness. Service matters, yet service without grace can turn into burnout. Even spiritual disciplines can turn into a ladder that people climb to feel safe.
If the message becomes Christ saves you, then you sustain you, the church has embraced a lie.
That lie produces either pride or despair.
Pride grows in the ones who think they are doing well. Despair grows in the ones who know they are not.
Both outcomes silence joy, crush assurance, and drain love.
Shepherding by Doubt is Cruel
One of the most destructive habits in parts of the conservative church is the constant practice of calling people’s salvation into question as a routine method of motivation.
That kind of shepherding does not restore bruised reeds. It snaps them.
Romans 8 speaks with clarity. Nothing can separate believers from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Christ holds His people. None can take them out of His hand. The gospel gives rest to the weak and weary.
That does not remove church discipline. God disciplines His children because He loves them. The church corrects sin to protect the flock and call wanderers back. Yet a steady diet of suspicion and fear does not produce holiness. It produces hiding.
Scripture calls for restoration with gentleness. Galatians 6 makes that plain. People caught in sin need a church that knows how to apply Christ to them with humility, patience, and hope.
Grace teaches us to renounce ungodliness. Grace strengthens the heart. Grace sustains suffering saints. Grace trains believers to live in a world that is still groaning.
Fear can create outward conformity for a season. Grace creates real spiritual fruit.
The Battlefield is the Pulpit and the Pew
Every Sunday is a battlefield.
The enemy wants pastors to rely on personality, cleverness, and technique. He wants sermons that entertain without feeding. He wants services that distract rather than proclaim. He wants churches that treat the Lord’s Table like an optional extra instead of a means of Christ’s care.
If grace is removed from the church, people will still gather. They will still sing. They will still volunteer. They will still look busy.
They will not be nourished.
The enemy also wants believers isolated from the place where grace is ordinarily delivered through Word, prayer, fellowship, and the gathered worship of the church. Isolation makes people vulnerable. Peter warns about this. Sober-minded vigilance is not a personality trait. It is a posture of war.
A Christian who lives on self-reliance will eventually collapse under the weight of life in a cursed world.
The Curse is Real, and So is the Lie
We live under Genesis 3. Bodies decay. Relationships fracture. Suffering lands on the just and the unjust. The world groans. Our bodies groan. The church groans. Scripture does not hide that.
Yet the enemy sells a story that sounds hopeful. Enough effort, enough time, enough money, enough control, and you can arrive.
That is the arrival fallacy. Next year will finally be the year. This new plan will finally fix it. This new leader will finally bring peace. This new discipline will finally make you secure.
The Bible tells us to set our minds on things above because the lasting hope is not found here. The King is coming. When He comes, He will wipe every tear and make all things new.
Until then, His grace is sufficient.
Grace Makes the Weak Effective
One of the most freeing truths for weary Christians is this. Grace does not require physical strength to accomplish spiritual good.
Someone flat on their back can stand in the strength of the Lord. Someone dying can pray with power. Someone exhausted can still love with real love because Christ supplies what they lack.
Grace does not depend on the body’s abilities. Grace depends on Christ’s power.
That means you are not useless. You are not sidelined. You are not forgotten.
If Christ is in you, your life has purpose in the kingdom. Even one day lived by faith matters more than a lifetime spent chasing smaller dreams.
Press Into the War with the Right Weapon
We have to recover the category of spiritual warfare. Not as entertainment. Not as fear theater. Not as obsession. As realism.
The enemy fights with lies. Christ answers with grace.
Ephesians 6 says the war is not against flesh and blood. The armor is not self-discipline as a savior. The armor is Christ applied through the means He has given.
That is why the church must keep singing grace, preaching grace, praying grace, and placing grace before the eyes of the saints week after week. We drain constantly. We get attacked constantly. We forget constantly.
So we gather, not to prove our worth, but to receive what we cannot produce.
A Closing Word for the Weary
If you are exhausted, you need grace. If you are ashamed, you need grace. If you are stuck in sin, you need grace. If you feel numb, you need grace. If you feel afraid, you need grace.
Grace is not God shrugging at sin. Grace is the Father giving you Christ again and again, forgiving you, sustaining you, strengthening you, and holding you fast.
As long as you are breathing, the grace of God in Jesus Christ is sufficient for you.
Do not let the enemy steal the emphasis. Do not let him replace Christ with your own strength. Come back to the gospel. Come back to the gathered church. Come back to the means of grace.
Christ will carry you through.
