Grace comes from the Latin word gratis, which means “favour, thanks, kindness”.
We use the word to remind us that we depend completely on God.
God made us to be in relationship with God and with each other, and God keeps us and the world going. God chooses to love and help us. When we turn to Jesus to learn from and follow him, it is God’s Spirit at work in us that changes us. This change is God’s work, not ours.
Methodists have a hopeful view of the world, even when life feels difficult. We believe that God created the world to be good (Genesis 1), and that God’s Spirit still cares for creation. This shows God’s grace that comes before anything we do. It is God’s free gift, given because of God’s goodness, not because we deserve it. Methodists speak of three aspects of God’s grace.
Prevenient grace
Methodists speak of prevenient grace to describe God’s love already at work in our lives before we are aware of it or respond in faith.
Prevenient is an old word which means “going before”, pointing to the belief that God’s grace always comes first.
Christians believe this grace is present wherever people are drawn towards love, truth, justice, or compassion. It awakens conscience, stirs longing and opens hearts to change. No one comes to faith by their own effort alone; God’s grace is already at work.
In Methodist theology, prevenient grace holds together God’s initiative and human freedom. God lovingly invites, rather than forces, a response. This encourages humility and hope: humility, because faith is not a personal achievement, and hope, because no one is beyond the reach of God’s grace.
You can read more about this in the Bible:
- John 12:32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
- Romans 2:4 Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?
- Titus 2:11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all,
Justifying grace
Methodists use the term justifying grace to describe what happens when a person responds to God’s grace in faith.
At that moment, God forgives sin, restores relationship, and assures the person of God’s love; not because they have earned it, but because of what God has done in Jesus Christ.
In Methodist theology, justifying grace is not something decided in advance for a chosen few. Rather, prevenient grace is already at work, drawing people towards God, and justification comes as we respond in trust and turn towards God in faith.
Justifying grace is more than a legal declaration. It is the beginning of new life with God; a lived renewal of relationship that brings peace, freedom and hope. This grace opens the way for continued growth, as God’s Spirit keeps working within us to shape our lives in love.
You can read more about this in the Bible:
- 1 Corinthians 1:26–31 Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to abolish things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. In contrast, God is why you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
- Romans 8:1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Sanctifying grace
For Methodists, the term sanctifying grace describes how God continues to work in a person’s life after they have responded in faith.
Through this grace, the Holy Spirit shapes and renews us over time, helping us to grow in holiness.
Holiness does not mean moral perfection or withdrawal from everyday life. To be holy is to love God and to love our neighbour. Becoming more holy means learning to love more fully and faithfully, by God’s grace.
Sanctifying grace is a lifelong process rather than a final achievement. It flows from justifying grace and leads to lives increasingly marked by love, mercy, justice and compassion, as God’s grace bears fruit in everyday life.
You can read more about this in the Bible:
- 1 Peter 2:9–10 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Once you were not a people,
but now you are God’s people;
once you had not received mercy,
but now you have received mercy. - Romans 12:1–21 I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, on the basis of God’s mercy, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable act of worship. Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Read full text - Ephesians 3:14–21 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.
Read full text - Ephesians 4:12–16 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.
