Grace

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Matthew Henry commenting on his introduction to the Revelation epistle wrote, “Grace is God’s goodwill toward us and his good work in us. Peace is the sweet evidence and assurance of this grace. There can be no true peace when there is no true grace; and where grace is, peace will follow.”

Grace as we see in the Bible is a great and grand thing – a marvelous thing. Grace is the one word the best describes God to us. I think, perhaps, this is why the Church corporately and Christians individually seem to be afraid of grace. Christians seem to talk a good talk of grace but walk a good walk of law.

A man once said that I had too much grace. Now mind you, how can you have too much grace? Only a person who doesn’t really understand grace will say such a thing. Can we have too much of God? We are to be filled with grace, overflowing with grace, consumed by grace.

There is a touch of grace in Lamentations – “The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassion never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Thy faithfulness.” (3:22,23) This is a minute portion of His goodwill toward us.

And we find a breeze of grace in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians – “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (2:10) This is a morsel of His good work in us.

But there are some things, which Grace is not. Whenever I hear a person say I don’t have to do this or that, then I suspect they don’t understand grace. Grace certainly doesn’t make a Christian a free spirit, for that is anarchy. Grace certainly doesn’t absolve a Christian from obeying both God and man. Grace certainly doesn’t remove personal discipline. Grace does none of these things.

What grace does do is give us a great freedom, a freedom to do more than anyone could do under law. Grace is Jesus unleashed toward us, in us and through us. What more could we ask.