The definition of grace is God’s undeserved favor. It is something that He freely offers to His Creation. On this journey, get used to also giving yourself grace. We’ve all blown it a few times. If you cannot forgive yourself, you will not benefit from God’s grace because you are condemning yourself to Hell. Jesus died for sinners; do you qualify? Some people have no problem recognizing their need for the cross (their issues are obvious), others almost feel like they can get into Heaven without it (their issues of pride and self-righteousness are not so obvious). This is actually quite common in religious circles.
Many people feel like they’ve never done anything worthy of eternal damnation. The problem is, you don’t have to do anything to deserve it. We all inherit a sin nature at conception. The dark side is automatic. Unless you come from a special race that somehow was not cursed with the rest of us in the Garden of Eden (which does not exist), you are in need of a Savior. This kind of self righteous bondage can be broken with a simple prayer. “God, I’m a mess. I need help!” That’s what I call “getting real”. It doesn’t matter which side of town we come from, the Pharisee or the tax collector (Luke 18: 9-14), we must recognize our need for a Savior. This is the first order of business.
I believe it is also important to have a basic idea of how things work on the inside. Understand that you are a complicated, complex piece of work. You have a three part makeup of body, soul, and spirit. The devil has known more about this than we have, and he has taken advantage of it. Be willing to learn some things about yourself and your make-up — why you act the way you do; what makes you tick. Again, give yourself some grace, because you might not like what you discover.
Your body, obviously, is the shell in which you live — your Earth-suit. Your soul is a combination of the heart and mind area and this is generally where most of our baggage is located. I believe this is where we work out our salvation “with fear and trembling”. With so much to learn about ourselves and God’s Kingdom, I imagine we’ll spend a lifetime making adjustments and getting healed in this area.