First, a word of explanation. A lightning strike to the church that knocked the internet out virtually all day long Thursday prevented me from posting as I had hoped on the topic of God’s amazing grace. So with this post I will resume my plan from last week.
Nothing known among humanity is as incredible and even unfathomable as is God’s grace. The Tyndale Bible Dictionary defines grace as “the dimension of divine activity that enables God to confront human indifference and rebellion with an inexhaustible capacity to forgive and to bless”. Grace is simply when individual received something they don’t deserve. In the context of Christian faith, it is God’s unmerited favor extended to humans. As someone once said, grace is “God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense”.
Let me note two important aspects of God’s grace. First, it is undeserved. Isaiah accurately penned the natural human response to God. “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way.” It is the natural inclination of the sin nature to hate God and to rebel against any directive, instruction, or desire that He has for us. Due to the fact that we were born in sin and that our sin has corrupted every part of our being, we stand in the position of being required to bear the full weight of the just penalty for sin. And that penalty is eternal separation from God in hell. Had God chosen to allow every human being who ever lived to suffer the full eternal consequences of sin, the only proper response to Him would have been to declare “Holy is your name for you are just.” However, God wasn’t satisfied to allow us to suffer the full eternal consequences of our sin. Paul said “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” God did for us what we could not do for ourselves. His grace extended to us through His son Jesus is completely undeserved.
God’s grace is also sufficient. It is not accurate to say that God’s grace is unlimited for to make such a claim would be to say that God’s grace would extend even to unrepentant sinners. It is fair to say that God’s grace is unlimited for those who have come to Him in repentance and confession of sin and who have committed themselves to Jesus as a lifelong disciple. But the best way to understand God’s grace for the believer is to say that it is sufficient. God’s grace meets our every need in every season. Whether it be a season of temptation, a season of suffering, a season pain, or whatever season life may bring, God’s grace is sufficient for the believer in that season. Moreover, God’s grace is sufficient for eternity. We can trust that on that great day when we stand before the Lord, His grace will be sufficient in that moment. It is worth noting that in that moment only His grace will be sufficient. If we try to stand before Him in the sufficiency of our own goodness, in the sufficiency of our own merit, in the sufficiency of our own righteousness, or in the sufficiency of anything other than His grace, we will find ourselves sorely lacking and we will find all those things acutely insufficient. Only God’s grace will be sufficient when we stand before Him to give account.
No wonder John Newton was able to say “Amazing Grace, how sweet that sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now I see.” Praise be to God for his AMAZING GRACE!!
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