God’s grace is not His giving to us what we do not deserve, but rather His grace is His giving to us the very opposite of what we do deserve. We are due nothing less than the fullness of His wrath poured out on us in judgment because of the very nature of our sinfulness; we deserve nothing less than eternal separation from our Holy Lord because of our desire to sin, our inclination to sin, our willfulness to sin. It is God’s grace which picks us out of the slime pit of sin and cleanses us by the blood of Christ, making us His very own. In the beginning of His accounting of the life of Christ, John wrote, For from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace (John 1.16). It is from the very fullness of Christ, from the character of Christ, from the love of Christ which we receive the abundance of grace; it is from the eternal sovereign design of God that grace upon grace is given to us, innumerable graces beyond our comprehension.
We have received grace, which is born in His absolute light, shining in the midst of our world’s darkness. His light shows us direction, understanding, and purpose; His light enables us to see the misery of our sinfulness before the purity of His holiness; it unquestionably illuminates our need for a Savior. We have received His grace enabling us to become His very children. We are brought into His family, not because of anything we deserve; rather, we are His children because He purchased us with the adoption price, the blood of Jesus Christ. The Sovereign Lord wanted to claim us, wanted us to know His glory, wanted to secure for us the richness of eternal blessings in His righteous kingdom. We have received grace in His revelation of Truth; not of our imaginations, but rather the fullness of His Truth for He is Truth, and all which He has given us is Truth. We have received grace upon grace and in the overabundance of His grace may we ever be filled with never ending praise and thankfulness.
As recipients of His grace – we have much to be thankful for –
Terry
My Morning Desk 