Read Acts 15:11 

If you have travelled to London, you have perhaps seen royalty. If so, you may have noticed sophistication, aloofness, distance. 

On occasion, royalty in England will make the news because someone in the ranks of nobility will stop, kneel down, and touch or bless a commoner. 

That is grace. 

There is nothing in the commoner that deserves being noticed or touched or blessed by the royal family. But because of grace in the heart of the queen, there is the desire at that moment to pause, to stoop, to touch, even to bless. 

To show grace is to extend favour or kindness to one who doesn't deserve it and can never earn it. 

Receiving God's acceptance by grace always stands in sharp contrast to earning it on the basis of works. 

Every time the thought of grace appears, there is the idea of its being undeserved. In no way is the recipient getting what he or she deserves. Favour is being extended simply out of the goodness of the heart of the giver.

Excerpted from Charles R. Swindoll, Wisdom for the Way (Nashville: J. Countryman, a division of Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2001). Copyright © 2001 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.