Grace is God's free gift, the Greek word is charis. Charis is applied to the free gift of the Holy Spirit, the free gift of pardon from sins, and the free gift of the righteousness of God. Faith gives you access to the free gift in all cases. Faith comes by hearing God's Voice. When faith comes, you have access to grace. Grace thinks God's Thoughts, says God's Words, and does God's Acts through you. Human beings, in themselves, have no ability to think good thoughts, say good words, or do good acts. All our righteousness is as filthy, filthy rags.

God speaks when you seek Him, inquire of Him, spend time meditating on Him, and waiting on His Presence. Every time the Holy Spirit brings a Scripture to your memory, this is God speaking to you personally. Keep in mind that the enemy of our souls can also use Scripture and can test Scripture. God speaks to you personally when you discern the Body of Christ and recognize the living Christ in a follower of Christ. Everything that any follower of Christ says by the power of the Holy Spirit is God speaking. Prophecy is God speaking. No one can say that Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Spirit. No one can say that Jesus is accursed except by the Holy Spirit. A word of wisdom by the gift of the Holy Spirit is God speaking. A word of knowledge by the gift of the Holy Spirit is God speaking. When you look at the creation, you see the works of God and God will speak to you through them if you listen. The Heavens declare the glory of God and the Earth showeth forth His handiwork. Whatever can be known about God is known through the things He created.

(some caveats about hearing God's Voice)

Scripture tells us all these things and our experience confirms them.

Often, the same follower of Christ can think, speak, or act by the power of the Holy Spirit and then think, speak, or act by the power of their own fallen, natural mind, which is deceitful and desperately wicked. Sometimes, you will see someone say that Christ should receive all the glory, but it is evident that the person themselves is receiving the glory rather than Christ. So, every person has a fleshly nature that is opposed to Christ and all who have been born again have Christ, Who cannot sin, living in them. This is the inner battle. Listening to the Christ will result in faith which gives access to grace. Grace does the work. This is what righteousness is. Righteousness is a thought, word, or deed that is done by Christ through you.

Holiness is not just a lot of righteousness. Holiness is something that you become. It is a transfiguration of you to be like Jesus, to be changed into the same Image. When you yield to the Holy Spirit in this way, then your mind is renewed and you are partly transfigured. That is to say, when you acknowledge Christ and see Him as He is, you become like Him. As we all, with the blinding veil of the sinful flesh taken away from our faces, look and see the glory of the Lord, as if we were looking into a mirror, then we are changed into the same image from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord. This is true whether you acknowledge Him in your fellow believer or in yourself.

So this is where you get grace from. It is not necessary to know all this to do all this. This all happens when we praise God, when we pray, when we love one another. But this is what is happening whenever grace is active.