BY GRACE

Time with Jesus - Sunday, 08 January 2012

Grace; God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. That’s what I was told more years ago than I care to remember.

Around about that time, I read an article by one of the world’s most popular preachers. He said that in all his years of preaching, not once had he attempted to put together an exposition on John 3:16. ¹⁶ "For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 NLT He added that he didn’t think he was able to do justice to the text. It was just too “holy” for him. Every time he tried to construct a sermon on the verse, he felt overwhelmed by the enormity of what it contained. In view of this, he thought it was unlikely that he would ever do so.

When it comes to the grace of God, I feel something like he must have felt. How is it possible to compose anything that would do justice to the grace of God? Does anyone understand grace? I doubt it. Grace isn’t something to discuss. That’s an impossibility. Grace will never be an intellectual exercise. It’s something to be experienced. Then when you’ve experienced it, you know for sure that you don’t really understand it.

Describing the grace of God is something like describing colour to a man born blind. Where do you start? We all have heard the hymn Amazing Grace by Rev John Newton. Singing it, reading it or listening to this hymn touches the very centre of our very being. “I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind but now I see.

As a young man of eighteen I encountered the grace of God in a limited way. I say in a limited way because I don’t think any man or woman who has ever lived, has plumbed the depth of God’s grace. His grace is infinite and His grace is free. How can anyone understand or explain this?

We live in a world that is defined by reward. Work hard and you’ll be rewarded by passing the end of year exam. Work hard, please the boss and you will be paid at the end of the month. Do something criminal and you will be “rewarded” by a fine, a time in prison, or perhaps both. Study hard and you will be rewarded with a matric, a degree, or even a doctorate. Just about everything we do is in some way connected by a reward or punishment system. But not grace. God makes His grace available to us when it’s the very opposite of what we deserve.

I’ve often said that God is not fair. Fairness is a human concept that does not apply to God. If God was fair, I would be sent to hell for a million eternities. I’ve spent most of my life earning the reward of sin. I should receive the wages due. Then I find that Jesus Christ has already picked up my pay check! The debt to God has been paid in full. All I have ever had to do was to repent from my sins and ask His Son to forgive me. It sounds easy. It sounds too easy. It is easy. But it’s not cheap. It was paid for in full by Jesus Christ that day on Calvary. It cost Him His life and the price was paid in full with His blood. Can I understand that? Not really. But I can experience it.

Fifty years ago I experienced His grace. It changed me forever. Today’s meditation looks at grace.

Jim & Phyllida Strickland.

By Grace

The grace that Jesus offers is utterly unique. It is the very quality that we all need to seek. It’s not some smug acceptance that we can recognise. It’s being granted something that is more than a surprise. It’s having been His enemy and worked to bring Him down; And finding we’re forgiven and asked to share His crown! It’s getting just the opposite of all that we deserve; And taken to His Father’s House where we will have the nerve, To see Him as our brother. Adopted by His Dad! Knowing that what we have done should surely drive Him mad! We cannot comprehend it. We’ve done our very best, To bring dishonour to His Name and found that we are blessed. He didn’t have to do it. He said that it was free. The cost was quite impossible for anyone like me. I knew I couldn’t buy it and that I couldn’t steal, This gift so indescribable; I thought it wasn’t real. How could the Blessed Saviour, who shouldn’t ever die, Do the indescribable, for folk like you and I? I knew I had insulted Him. I dragged His Name through mud. In terms of Christianity, I surely was a dud. Like every other sinner, my heart was frozen cold. And yet he said He looked at me and said He saw pure gold! I thought He must be seeing things. How could His words be true? It must have been somebody else; It wasn’t me on view. That’s when He said, “My precious child, you don’t appreciate, The limits of My sovereign grace and mankind’s fallen state. You’re right. You don’t deserve it. No man could ever earn, The price I paid to save you. So here’s what you must learn. No matter what you’ve ever done. No matter where you’ve been. I knew what you were doing and that you were unclean. You didn’t want to know Me. You much preferred your sin. Your mind can never comprehend the mess that you were in. But all it took to save you was one tiny drop! The blood I shed on Calvary. My blood would make you stop, Your independent action and turn you back to me. It was My grace that touched you and set your spirit free. And in My sight you’re holy because of what was done By grace, for you on Calvary when you embraced My Son. Jim Strickland – written Sunday 8th January 2012