Frustrating Grace: Understanding God's Approval and How to Navigate It

Grace is not earned by devotion — it is God's approval, and only those who understand its nature can truly walk in it.

Grace is one of the most misunderstood realities in the Christian life. Believers confuse it with love, equate it with relationship, and attempt to earn what can only be received through divine approval. To frustrate grace is to resist the very ordinances of heaven that God has established to advance His purposes through you — and it happens most often when believers operate in ignorance of what grace actually is.

Teaching Overview

Grace is God's approval — not a measure of His love — and it determines your spiritual function and gifting.
Believers do not build a relationship with God; they grow in the knowledge of the love already given to them.
The distinction between grace, love, and mercy must be understood in order to navigate each correctly.
Pride — not sin — is what causes a believer to fall; humility and repentance keep you under God's covering.
Grace functions only to the measure of faith, and faith functions only to the measure of grace — both must be developed and honored.

Key Distinctions

	Grace	Love	Mercy
What it is	God's approval that enables spiritual function	God's unconditional disposition toward all people	God's perspective that withholds deserved judgment
Who receives it	Those whom God approves for specific purposes	All of humanity — including those outside Christ	Those under God's grace whom He chooses not to judge by their failures
Whether it is earned	No — it is bestowed by divine approval, not works or righteousness	No — God loved us while we were still sinners	No — it is an act of God's perspective, not human merit
Its relationship to salvation	Salvation comes through grace by faith	God gave Jesus because He loved the world	Mercy secures the believer in God beyond their failings
What it determines	Spiritual gifts, prophetic capacity, and divine authorization	God's motive for giving His Son	How God deals with you — not by your strength but by His perspective
How it is frustrated	By ignorance of its nature, pride, and dishonoring those God has placed over you	It cannot be frustrated — God's love does not change	Tender mercy is activated by humility and repentance

	Anointing	Presence of God
What it is	Being set apart and separated by God for a purpose	God's active nearness and manifest fellowship
Who can have it	Believers and unbelievers alike — Cyrus was anointed without knowing God	Those who walk in relationship and communion with God
Whether they coexist	You can be anointed without the presence	You can have the presence without being anointed
Common misconception	Many assume anointing means power or spiritual intensity	Many conflate experiencing God's presence with being anointed

	Building a Relationship with God	Growing in the Knowledge of God's Love
What it implies	That you and God are constructing something together through effort	That God's love already exists and you are expanding in your comprehension of it
Scriptural basis	No verse instructs believers to build a relationship with God	Scripture says to grow in the knowledge of the love of God
The danger	Creates a works-based framework — implying more effort yields more love	Correctly positions love as a given, not a reward
How approval is earned	Suggests closeness produces approval — as if John's intimacy with Jesus would grant him Peter's assignment	God's approval is by grace, not by proximity or devotion

	Sin	Pride
What it causes	Moral failure and broken conduct	Spiritual downfall — the loss of God's covering
Whether it causes falling	No scripture says you fall because of sin	Pride comes before the fall — it is pride that removes you
God's response to it	God responds to repentance with mercy — even tender mercy	God resists the proud; humility is what restores
What guards against falling	Repentance — the expression of humility that acknowledges wrong	Humility — the posture that keeps you under God's covering

What Grace Is and Is Not

Grace is God's approval — the divine authorization that permits you to function spiritually and navigate the gifts God has given you.
Love is not grace, and grace is not a measure of love — God can grace whom He does not love in the covenant sense, because these are entirely distinct operations.
Every person on earth is loved by God, but not everyone is graced by God — love extends to the whole world, while grace is the specific approval God bestows.

"Grace is a sign that you have been approved by God. Love is a sign that God has his eyes on you."

"For God so love the world, not Christians — the world. So even the stripper, even the prostitute, even the murderer, even the witch and the wizard is loved by God. But grace is the approval."

Grace, Mercy, and Their Relationship

Grace and mercy consistently appear together in Scripture because once God approves you, His perspective toward you must also align — mercy is that perspective.
Mercy is not love; love is a verb, while mercy is a perspective — the perspective that withholds judgment and says, I will bring them back to Myself.
Beyond ordinary mercy, there is tender mercy — the level at which God says, I cannot let them fall, and changes His approach to preserve the one who humbles themselves.

"There is mercy and then there is tender mercy. Mercy is just like, okay, you know what? I give them a pass. Tender mercy — oh my God, I can't let them fall."

Growing in the Knowledge of God's Love — Not in God Himself

The love of God does not grow — believers grow in the knowledge of that love, which has already been fully given.
Anointing does not grow either — to be anointed is to be separated and set apart, and this can apply even to those who do not know God, as with Cyrus.
Christians frequently confuse the presence of God with anointing — these are not the same: you can carry one without the other.

"Stop this nonsense of saying you built a relationship with God. How can you build with somebody who predestined you, preordained you? To build it means you have come together to put something together. But God gave us His love. So we don't build a relationship. We grow in the knowledge of the love that has been given to us."

God's Approval Over Religious Proximity

Jesus loved John as a younger brother, yet He built His church on Peter — demonstrating that spiritual assignment flows from grace and approval, not from relational closeness.
Peter was approved by grace when he declared Jesus as the Christ — God's own revelation to him, not the product of study or earned intimacy.
Fasting, prayer, and religious devotion do not earn God's approval — the attempt to earn approval through works keeps you at a distance from the Father.

"You don't earn anything from God. The more you try to earn from the Father, you are far."

"Flesh and blood did not reveal this unto you. My Father has revealed this unto you, who is in heaven."

Pride, Sin, and the Posture of Humility

Sin does not cause a believer to fall — there is no scripture that says falling comes from sin; it is pride that comes before the fall.
The sign of humility is repentance — the willingness to recognize wrong, fix it, and not deflect blame onto others.
David's story with Nathan the Prophet demonstrates that God's goal is never exposure or destruction — He desires that His servants remain in a posture of humility, and tender mercy is released the moment that posture is resumed.

"Sin has never made anybody fall. There is no scripture that says you fall, because of sin, it says you fall, because of pride. Pride comes before the fall."

"You expose yourself. You departed from God's covering."

The Relationship Between Grace and Faith

Grace and faith are mutually dependent — grace can only function to the measure of faith, and faith can only function to the measure of grace.
This is why salvation is easy for every believer — the grace given for salvation matches the faith deposited for receiving it, so no one doubts their standing before God in Christ.
The gift of faith that accompanies prophetic ministry is not produced by study — it arises from the grace apportioned to that calling.

"Grace can only function to the measure of faith. Faith can only function to the measure of grace."

"That is why nobody struggles to receive salvation. Because the grace you have been given matches up with the ability to receive Jesus as a Savior."

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Navigating the Limits of Your Grace

You cannot frustrate your own grace — your grace has a fixed measure and you cannot exceed what has been divinely assigned to you.
Attempting to operate beyond your apportioned grace produces frustration in yourself, not in the grace — sleepless nights and striving result from trying to force what God has set at a boundary.
Knowing the areas in which you are strongly graced — and the areas where you are not — is essential to functioning with consistency and effectiveness.

"You cannot frustrate what is actually embedded with you. God has given you, let's say, grace to gather... you cannot, if you cannot grow beyond a certain point, then you will frustrate yourself going, trying to go beyond what has been given to you."

Key Definitions

Grace — God's approval that enables spiritual function; the divine authorization by which gifts operate, prophecy flows, and miracles manifest — not a product of love, prayer, or righteousness.

Mercy — God's perspective toward those He has approved; not love itself, but an expression that withholds judgment and draws the person back to God.

Tender Mercy — The elevated dimension of mercy in which God actively prevents His servant from falling, changing His approach to preserve the one who has returned to humility.

Anointing — To be set apart and separated by God for a purpose; not synonymous with power or spiritual intensity, and not exclusive to believers — Cyrus was anointed without knowing God.

Frustrating Grace — Resisting the ordinances of heaven that are designed to advance what God has given you; most commonly caused by ignorance of grace's nature, pride, and the failure to honor those God has placed in your life.

Growing in the Knowledge of God's Love — The correct scriptural posture toward God's love — not building something new, but expanding in comprehension of what has already been fully given; distinct from the unscriptural concept of building a relationship with God.

Key Takeaways

Grace is God's approval, entirely distinct from His love — understanding this distinction liberates believers from performance-based spirituality and correctly positions grace as divine authorization, not reward.
Believers grow in the knowledge of God's love, not in the love itself — repositioning this truth dismantles the false framework of building a relationship with God and redirects believers toward receiving what has already been given.
Pride — not sin — is what causes a believer to fall — this reframes how believers should respond to failure: not with fear of exposure, but with immediate humility and repentance, which activates tender mercy.
Grace and faith operate in proportion to each other — recognizing this prevents believers from striving in areas where grace has not been apportioned and builds confidence in the areas where it has.
Honoring those God has placed over you is directly connected to growing in grace — dishonor closes the door on divine opportunity; humility and honor are the practical pathways through which grace is recognized and received.

Reflection Questions

In what areas of your life have you been striving beyond what God has actually graced you for — and what would it look like to operate within your genuine grace rather than the grace you wish you had?
Have you been attempting to earn God's approval through fasting, prayer, or devotion, believing that more effort produces more favor? How does understanding grace as divine approval — not a reward for works — challenge that posture?
Where in your life has pride prevented you from repenting quickly and returning to humility? What would have been different if you had responded to correction the way David responded to Nathan?
Who has God placed in your life — spiritually, parentally, or in ministry — whom you have not fully honored? What specific step of honor can you take this week?
Are you growing in the knowledge of God's love, or have you been trying to build something with God that He has already given you? What would it mean practically to shift from striving to receiving?

Prayers and Declarations

"I want you to grab the best that you have. I want you to give it to God."

"Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the gift of grace, Lord, help us to grow in grace, Lord. Help us to recognize areas that we can grow in grace, Father God. Thank you, Father God, for your grace. Help us to grow in grace, help us to see opportunities to grow in grace, Father God."

"Thank you, Father God, for opening our eyes to see divine opportunities to grow in grace, help to open our spiritual eyes to see where we might be able to sow more into your grace. Thank you, Father God for opening our eyes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your divine grace, Father God. Let us see what others cannot see. Father God, divine opportunity to grow in grace."

"We thank You Lord for blessing us and helping us Father God to humble ourselves Lord. We repent for any time that we have not humbled ourselves, any opportunity that we haven't seen to grow in grace. Any time we've been proud, Father God. We repent to you now. Lord, forgive us right now. Forgive us, Father God. For any time we've been proud, that we've had a proud, haughty spirit. Any time that we did not honor where we should have honored. Any time that we did not take advantage of a divine opportunity of grace. Anytime we were proud, any time we had a proud heart, a proud spirit, Father God. Anytime we did not humble ourselves before those who You have given to us to humble ourselves. Father God forgive us."

"For not giving our honor, Father God. For withholding the honor, Lord God. Forgive us for not honoring our parents, Father God, that our lives might be longer. Lord forgive us, Father. No matter how our parents were, Father God, forgive us for not showing them honor that You declared that we should show them, Father. Put something in our hearts, Father God, that we may honor them still, that our lives be long, that our lives not be cut short, Father God."

"Lord, show us any evil way in our hearts, Father God, that we will repent before You, Father. Show us any way that is in us, any unforgiveness, any dishonor that we have in us, Father God. Show us who we owe honor to, Father God. Let us settle all accounts, Father God. If it be people that have blessed us five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, let us not forget the awesome men of God that You have blessed in our lives, Father God. People don't have to be nice to us, Father God. Lord, let us not withhold any honor to anyone who has blessed us. Bring to our memories, Father God. And in Jesus' name."

"And finally, to wrap this up, Lord, we just ask that You keep this message in our heart, Father God. Grace and honor are not going to lose importance. This message is not going to lose importance. Father God, bless us not only to receive this message, but to retain this message. Heavenly Father, thank You so much that this message will be in our hearts until the day that we see You in heaven. Father God, thank You for not letting us forget to give honor to those who are honorable. Father God, help us to never forget to look for our divine opportunities to show grace, to growing grace, Father God. Lord God, we thank You so much. And we pray that this message never leaves our hearts nor our minds, Father, that we would be an example of how to show grace, that people would look at us and know, oh, that is how you grow in grace, that is how you honor. Father God, help us to be vessels of honor, that honor the men and women of God and the people that You have blessed us within our lives. Father, help us to remember this always Lord, no matter how people have treated us, Father God, help us to give honor where honor is due. Heavenly Father, we thank You, Lord, for this message being in our hearts, Lord God, that we will not in any way forget it. Father God, when maybe we're dealt with unjustly, Lord, but we will remember that we serve You first, Lord. We thank You for the honor that we can give other people. Amen, Father."

Scripture References

Romans 5:8 — "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (KJV)
Ephesians 2:8 — "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God." (KJV)
Matthew 16:17 — "And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." (KJV)
Isaiah 45:1
2 Samuel 12:13
Psalms 103

Golden Nuggets

"Grace is a sign that you have been approved by God. Love is a sign that God has His eyes on you."

"Every person on earth is loved by God, but not everybody is graced by God."

"You don't earn anything from God. The more you try to earn from the Father, you are far."

"We don't build a relationship. We grow in the knowledge of the love that has been given to us."

"Sin has never made anybody fall. There is no scripture that says you fall because of sin — it says you fall because of pride. Pride comes before the fall."

"Grace can only function to the measure of faith. Faith can only function to the measure of grace."

"There are things God won't teach you — only grace will teach you."

"Only grace makes you great."

"When I call Him He will come."

"You expose yourself. You departed from God's covering."

Resources and Further Reading

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