What is the favor of God, and how can I get it?
The word "favour" in Scripture is closely linked to the word "grace" — in fact, they are the same word. The favour of God is not something earned by moral effort or religious devotion. It is the free, undeserved kindness of God toward sinners, made possible entirely through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
What the Favour of God Is
Charles Stanley explains this with remarkable clarity from Romans 5:
Charles Stanley"By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand." We enter by faith into the full, unclouded favour of God. This grace implies the free favour revealed in the redemption we have, being justified freely. This is our happy, abiding place. There we stand. What a wondrous, present peace!
The favour of God is not a mood or an attitude that shifts depending on how well we behave. It is a settled position into which believers are brought and in which they stand. Stanley goes further:
Not only have we peace with God, present access into the free favour of God, and the longing hope for His glory, but this enables us to glory in present tribulations also.
L. M. Grant draws a helpful distinction between grace, mercy, and peace — three words often used together but each with a different shade of meaning:
L. M. GrantMercy is that tender compassion of God toward the deep need of the soul in its circumstances of misery or of guilt. Mercy can forgive, and delights to do so. However, immediately the apostle speaks of our being "quickened together with Christ," he adds "(by grace ye are saved); and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." If in mercy God has looked upon us and given life when we were dead in sins, His grace has gone further still, conferring upon us favour that lifts us far above all our former circumstances, saving us, delivering into a realm of perfect joy and peace, circumstances of heavenly blessing, in Christ.
He illustrates it simply:
For a mere humanitarian could show mercy to another who was in dire circumstances, clothe him, feed him, perhaps give him work — but to take him to his own home as his own son and invest him with his own wealth would be a far different matter. This is what grace does. It not only forgives: it provides abundant blessing on a far higher level than the circumstances out of which it delivers.
Why You Cannot Earn It
J. N. Darby addresses the common misunderstanding that grace means God is simply lenient about sin. The opposite is true — grace presupposes that the problem is too great for man to fix himself:
J. N. DarbyThere is sometimes the thought that grace implies God's passing over sin, but no, grace supposes sin to be so horribly bad a thing that God cannot tolerate it: were it in the power of man, after being unrighteous and evil, to patch up his ways, and mend himself so as to stand before God, there would be no need of grace. The very fact of the Lord's being gracious shows sin to be so evil a thing that, man being a sinner, his state is utterly ruined and hopeless, and nothing but free grace will do for him — can meet his need.
And with great force:
Grace has reference to what GOD is, and not to what we are, except indeed that the very greatness of our sins does but magnify the extent of the "Grace of God." ... Be we what we may (and we cannot be worse than we are), in spite of all that, what God is towards us is LOVE. Neither our joy nor our peace is dependent on what we are to God, but on what He is to us, and this is grace.
F. B. Hole makes the same point by contrasting two approaches to God — law and grace:
F. B. HoleOn a legal basis no one ever stands before God: all collapse and fall down. ... In Exodus God started with an "IF." "If ye will obey My voice indeed;" but they never did obey His voice and so never were what was proposed. In Peter the "If" is absent and instead we read, "But ye are a chosen generation." The Christians to whom Peter wrote were these very things that Israelites as a nation were not. What was never reached on a legal basis was reached on the basis of grace.
How You Receive It
The answer is strikingly simple: by faith, not by effort.
Stanley is direct:
Do you believe God as to this? Can you now cease from works, and rest in the boundless, free favour of God?
He also addresses those who think they must first work up enough spiritual experience before God will receive them:
Many read these verses as meaning the exact opposite of what they say, as though we must have this experience in order that the love of God may be shed abroad in our hearts; and if we pray much, and are very diligent in patience, experience, and hope, that then we may hope that the Holy Spirit will be given us. No words can tell how utterly wrong all this is. The Holy Ghost is given to us because Jesus has finished the work of redemption.
J. N. Darby puts it in personal, everyday terms:
J. N. DarbyThe moment I understand that I am a sinful man, and yet that it was because the Lord knew the full extent of my sin, and what its hatefulness was, that He came to me, I understand what grace is. Faith makes me see that God is greater than my sin, and not that my sin is greater than God.
And for the one who has drifted away or feels disqualified:
Suppose my soul is out of communion, the natural heart says, "I must correct the cause of this before I can come to Christ," but He is gracious; and knowing this, the way is to return to Him at once, just as we are, and then humble ourselves deeply before Him. It is only in Him and from Him that we shall find that which will restore our souls.
Living in It
Receiving God's favour is the beginning — but it is also meant to be the atmosphere of daily life. F. B. Hole writes:
F. B. HoleOh! the humbling, soul-subduing effect of knowing that, in spite of all we find in ourselves, the sweet and perfect favour of God rests upon us because of Christ, and nothing can separate us "from the love of God which is in" — not ourselves but — "Christ Jesus our Lord."
L. M. Grant describes this daily grace as an active, energetic power:
L. M. GrantGrace is the active, energetic favour of God which delights to fill our cup to overflowing, "abundantly above all we can ask or think." ... It is the active, positive power for good: for having brought salvation, it also teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world.
The favour of God is His free, unmerited kindness toward guilty sinners — not despite their sin being serious, but precisely because it is so serious that nothing but grace could meet the case. You cannot earn it by good behaviour, religious effort, or spiritual experience. It comes through the finished work of Christ on the cross and His resurrection, and is received by simple faith — believing that what God says about His Son is true. Once received, it becomes your permanent standing before God: you are no longer under law, trying to qualify, but "in Christ," standing in the unclouded favour of God. And this same grace is the power for daily life — not a one-time gift only, but a living relationship with the God who delights to give abundantly.
As Darby summarises it: "The having very simple thoughts of grace is the true source of our strength as Christians; and the abiding in the sense of grace, in the presence of God, is the secret of all holiness, peace, and quietness of spirit."