Surely He scorns the scornful, But gives grace to the humble. Proverbs 3:34 (NKJV)
God created us to live and walk with Him and that’s only possible if we can live and walk like God. But we can’t do that in our own human strength and effort. In Christ Jesus God came to live in us, and live through us.
Grace is God living in us, working in us, walking in us. In order for God to do that we have to let Him by giving up our own human efforts and totally depending on His ability. This is what it means to be humble, this is how we receive and live in God’s Grace. But when we refuse to depend on God and insist on relying on our human strength and effort then we are scornful towards God. Because human works are imperfect and dead works, they can’t please God, depending on your self-effort is scorned by God. We can’t live right by sheer determination of avoiding sin. But when we believe that Jesus took our sin, gave us His righteousness – 1Peter 2:24, so now we are righteous, we end up living righteous effortlessly. Now God is living His Righteous Life in us. We are now rightly living and walking with Him. This is Grace.