- As we try to live our lives under God’s grace, there are some important things to consider. No matter how hard we try to hold onto grace and the freedom from guilt and shame that it brings, grace’s (God’s) hold on our lives is even stronger. Grace finds us and works on us as long as we are open to it. However, we need to resist the temptation to continually look at our own performance - which inevitably goes up and down: when we’re not doing so well in following God, we are easily discouraged and deflated; when we feel like we’ve been doing pretty well, we tend to become proud and self-focused. Instead, we need to hold onto the perfect performance that Christ turned in on our behalf, and accept the peace and joy that is possible when we know that His performance is what we will be judged by.