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God’s
GRACE is still amazing to me. GRACE has rightly been described as "unmerited
favor," but it has been my observation that GRACE is not only unmerited,
it is the OPPOSITE of what I deserve. I deserve eternal death. I have
eternal life. I deserve to be punished forever. I am being blessed with
blessing upon blessing. My natural tendency is to sin more and more, but by
His GRACE I am being conformed to the image of Christ and being transformed
from glory to glory. (“But we all, with open
face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the
same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
2Cor. 3:18)
One of my
favorite verses speaks of the GRACE of our Lord Jesus Christ. “For
you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet
for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become
rich.“(2
Corinthians 8:9)
God reveals to
us His grace. We need to learn more and more about it, and then to
experience it at work in our lives. The acrostic, "God's Riches
At Christ's Expense," catches some of its majesty.
Grace is God freely providing for us (as we trust in the work of His Son)
all that we will ever need, all that we will ever yearn for, all that He has
commanded us to walk in and become, realities that we could never produce on
our own, could never earn, and could never deserve. Grace offers what every
human desperately needs, but what God alone can provide. No human can be
fulfilled apart from the revelation of God’s GRACE and “His
divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through
our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.”
This grace is
found only in a person, the Lord Jesus. It is the "grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ." Thus, it is accessible only
through an ongoing personal relationship with Him. Paul yearned to
know Him more intimately. “I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of
Christ Jesus my Lord: (and Paul goes on to show that he
mirrors the same grace in his own life) for
whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but
dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own
righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of
Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: that I may know him,
and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings,
being made conformable unto his death”
Grace was made
available to us by Jesus' willingness to take our spiritual bankruptcy
upon Himself, that we might be able to partake of His spiritual
richness. Before coming to earth below, Jesus enjoyed heavenly riches
above ("that though He was rich").
He knew the infinitely rich fellowship of the Father and the Spirit. He
received the rich worship of angelic beings. He enjoyed the limitless
advantages of deity.
Then, for our
benefit, Jesus voluntarily became poor ("for
your sakes He became poor"). He humbled Himself to walk as a man
among sinful humanity. He who was adored above became despised below. He who
shined forth in glorious divinity in heaven was clothed in humble humanity
on earth. He who created all things was slain by those He created. He who
always existed in eternity past died in time. He who was holy took our sin
upon Himself. “For he hath made him to be sin
for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in
him.” (2Cor. 5:21)
Through these
workings of His grace, all who believed in Him would become
spiritually rich ("that you through His
poverty might become rich"). Now, we whose "righteousness
were as filthy rags" (Isaiah
64:6) have become "the righteousness of
God in Him" (2
Corinthians 5:21). We "who once were not
a people . . . are now the people of God" (1
Peter 2:10). Now, we have been "blessed
with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ" (Ephesians
1:3). “God sending his own Son in the
likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the
righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the
flesh, but after the Spirit.”
Let us praise the Lord and
thank Him for His great GRACE toward us. May we come to an increasing
knowledge of this amazing GRACE of the Lord Jesus Christ through a growing
relationship with Him. Then let us become instruments of His Grace in the
lives of others to the glory and honor of Jesus Christ our Lord.
“The
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.”
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