grace and Sactifying Grace

So I went to visit with Curt yesterday. He has been reading a book on Catholic theology. So far he has 80 pages of notes on a 245 page book--he still has 3 chapters to read! But his latest readings were on the difference between grace (with a small g) and Sanctifying Grace (capital S capital G). Which I was clueless on, so I asked for an explanation.

What it appears to boil down to is grace is the tug of God that we feel as sinful people who know something is missing in our lives. It can occur to people who have not had church experience as an emptiness that they don't know how to fill. It can occur to people who have gone to church all their lives, but never had God touch them in a personal way. But at this point--it is a free gift God has given to every human being conceived in sin. We all, regardless of place, time, nationality or creed will feel this grace.

Sanctifying Grace is also a gift of God, but it requires our input too. This is what occurs after we make a conscious decision to follow God, to turn from sin, to become a believer. It is this SG that allows God to look at us and not see our sin and faults, but see Jesus' sacrifice in our place. Can we lose SG? Yes we can. When we make those decisions to turn away from God and sin against him. (in the big stuff--not the little stuff :) )

But---the small g grace--God will not take away--it is his gift to all mankind--including the sinning Christian--to remind us of where we need to be. And as a sinning Christian--who has already experienced both the original grace of God and knows what it feels like as well as having experienced and knowing how good SG is...we should be that much quicker to respond.

At least--that is what I could get of it. Filtered through Curts understanding. I think I want to read that book.