Or is it really a love-hate issue?
My Bible reads that God gives it to whomever He finds favor. How does yours read?
For the purposes of your post, how broadly (generally - or specifically) are you defining "Grace"? Depending on how you are understanding the key word, I think it is something primarily in the good will and pleasure of God to dispense grace. Paul's conversion seems an apt example (so, for that matter, does John Newton's) of Grace being given (from man's perspective) with no good cause. But we read the same apostle saying this :
What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
Romans 9:22-24
Verse 22 was what came to mind immediately because of the first 4 words - and primarily "willing". As I read that, it puts the verse (and those following) in a distinct light. One which has God's dispensation of wrath, mercy and riches entirely at His own discretion. Someone may say that God's wrath, however, is not capricious - so why should we expect His good gifts to be so. But when it is realized that there is none righteous and that all have sinned and fallen short of His glory then we are left with the understanding that any giving of Grace (in the way I am framing it here) is undeserved. At least in terms of works and earning it. The argument is given that God requires faith (He does!) to please Him. And we are even specifically told that anyone approaching Him must come in faith if he expects to receive anything. The man who is hedging his bets is sent away empty-handed. But returning to the passage, we nowhere find God looking for faith to justify His gifts. That the recipients will have faith - I have no doubt. But this is not a requirement in an eternal sense. God does not say "
I will do this if..." but the passage says (essentially) "
I will do this because...". The "because" is not anything found in man, but (again) God's desire to display "the riches of His glory". Which, if I read the text correctly, was something He determined long before you or I were even a twinkle in our mother or father's eye.
I have found (in myself) a desire to know things that I can only believe was put there by God. Along with that desire for understanding there is a tendency to equate knowing
how things are done with knowing (in a more than cursory way) the thing under observation itself. And if I know that I do X and God will do Y (or some variant thereof) I risk reducing Him to a sort of cosmic vending machine that will give me what I want (or need) based on what I do. There is a clear sense of that in scripture - if My people who are called by My name etc... - and God does say IF you do THIS, then I will do THAT. And if you DON'T, then THIS OTHER THING will happen. But when it comes to God's giving of Grace, to say one can do something to receive it makes it a matter of one deserving it. A qualification upon which one can go to God and point to one's self as a reason for God to give. Aside from a need that makes one entirely dependent upon God (i.e. being totally unqualified to earn God's Grace), I can think of no scenario in which that approach endears us to God. Job's lamenting and protestations were to his righteousness - yet even he (a man God called His servant) had to repent in dust and ashes when he came face to face with the reality of who God was (and is). Paul says this :
For though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool; for I will say the truth: but now I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be, or that he heareth of me.
And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.
For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.
And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.
2 Cor 12:6-10
He was given great understanding that would tempt him to think of himself as something - that he knew and understood God of himself and had a right to approach God as some great man. That understanding (revelation) would be the effective cause of him pointing to himself. If, that is, God didn't pierce his pride. The very thing that should point us to God and away from ourselves becomes that which puffs us up to make us think we understand God (and can, at some level, "work the system"). So the only requirement I can see (aside from faith - which God surely provides) is humility. Not to be a broken record, but the publican of Luke 18 epitomizes this.
And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
Luke 18:13-14
When we creatures think we have arrived because we know something (and so can use that to our own advantage with God), we are mistaken if we think we can expect Grace. It is given to those who need it - who are poor in spirit and can not live without God's provision - and recognize that. Which I think, in part, is why the hymnwriter said this :
I know not why God’s wondrous grace
To me He hath made known,
Nor why, unworthy, Christ in love
Redeemed me for His own.
But “I know Whom I have believed,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed
Unto Him against that day.”
