How do you turn down grace?

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Espere

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I’ve read several books where God speaks to saints and his words are rewritten for us. Time and time again I see him say that his graces are not accepted by those he tries gives them to. How am I or anyone, refusing grace from God? Especially when I am not even aware he’s tried to give to me?
 
Perhaps in not working on the initiative to help ,smile,speak kindly to other people when we feel a prompting ?
Perhaps in not offering up little things out of love
for Him?
 
Grace can be resisted. Humility is the keystone to all virtue.
 
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If one is proud, narcissistic, dominating and humiliating others then grace is being turned down.
 
We have free will. When one is in sin, the deeper they get the “less attractive” grace appears to them.

When it comes to saints or others who hear voices from God, we are to follow the Church before we accept them as true. Fr Groeschel wrote an EXCELLENT book on the topic:

 
God draws and coaxes us. We begin apart from Him, and this separation is the essence of the state known as Original Sin. But as Jesus tells us, “Apart from Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5) So it’s a process, but the more we respond-the nearer that we draw to Him IOW- the more He responds with even more grace- and then faith, along with the virtues of hope and love, grow as well. “Draw near to God and He’ll draw near to you.” (John 4:8) And yet He initiates it all of course: “We love Him because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)

So God never forces the issue; it’s a cooperative effort. We must want it; we must seek Him more and more-and we’ll find Him-as in reality He finds us. That’s what salvation is all about.
 
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Rejecting opportunities for the Sacraments would be not accepting grace. Like, when I stayed away from confession for about 18 years, I was not accepting God’s grace of forgiveness and mercy, and choosing to stay in a state of sin instead. Likewise when I didn’t go to Mass for a lot of years I was rejecting God’s grace given through assisting at Mass and receiving Eucharist. He puts these opportunities out there for us all but many people ignore them, and aren’t doing anything else to worship or serve God (like non-Catholics who believe their faith is correct might be worshipping God in another church or in another manner).
 
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I’d say that anytime we prefer our own will to God’s will we are refusing the manifold graces that come with God’s will. So yes, most of us do this more than we’d like to admit.
 
I think the only time we can be sure that we’re “preferring our own will to God’s will” Is when we are sinning. If we’re committing a sin, then obviously we are not doing God’s will.

Otherwise it can be challenging to discern at all times what “God’s will” is. The Ignatian Spirituality crowd is constantly trying daily to determine and follow God’s Will. There is an entire series of talks going on at one of my churches about how to “live in the Divine Will”.
 
Say I have a sinful thought — of lust or anger — and I nurse it for a moment, then I remember that I shouldn’t have such a thought because it offends God. Is this second thought an instance of grace?
 
In my opinion, that is an example of your conscience.

2003 Grace is first and foremost the gift of the Spirit who justifies and sanctifies us. But grace also includes the gifts that the Spirit grants us to associate us with his work, to enable us to collaborate in the salvation of others and in the growth of the Body of Christ, the Church. There are sacramental graces , gifts proper to the different sacraments. There are furthermore special graces , also called charisms after the Greek term used by St. Paul and meaning “favor,” “gratuitous gift,” “benefit.” Whatever their character - sometimes it is extraordinary, such as the gift of miracles or of tongues - charisms are oriented toward sanctifying grace and are intended for the common good of the Church. They are at the service of charity which builds up the Church.

http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2003.htm
 
I would add that there are plenty of people who choose to ignore God. And some of those people, when life gets tough, all they do is complain. In the words of St Augustine: ‘That God should neglect those who do not seek Him is but justice’.
 
“how do you turn down grace”

By puffing yourself up with pride.

Been there, done that. Still do it to my chagrin.
 
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