What shall I do when someone comes to me, gossiping and railing?

What am I to do when faced with immorality and sensuousness?

How shall I respond to covetousness and pleasure-seeking?

What shall I do about lying, swearing, wrong jokes, and so forth?

Sometimes I experience these in real life. Other times I encounter them in my reading.

“And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Ephesians 5:11).

Gulp!

Grace — the desire and power to do God’s will.

Pleasing God would be an impossible thing were it not for His grace.

God so wants to be pleased with us that He shows us what pleases Him.

Yet He knows that on our own we could never live according to what pleases Him.

So He offers us both the desire and the power to live according to His pleasure.

That is grace.

“But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ” (Ephesians 4:7).

Just as God fully gave Christ for us, so He has given us grace.

So let me turn often to Him, asking Him to help me live by His grace.