I find myself reading the old classic, We Would See Jesus. In the introduction, the authors make the claim that if you miss the concept of grace in coming to Jesus, you’ve missed everything.
In fact, they argue that, “the moment we have to do something to make ourselves more acceptable to God, or the moment we have to have a certain feeling or attribute of character in order to be blessed by God, then grace is no longer grace.”
We have nothing to offer. Everything is bestowed freely because of Jesus. If we miss this, we miss everything.