LET’S THINK ABOUT GRACE
By: Frank Tunstall, D. Min.
This is the first time I have given specific study to the meaning of grace. Looking back over the years I guess I took the message of God’s grace for granted.
This study has proven to be a rewarding effort for me even though this surely is not an exhaustive study of grace.
God is the creator of the heavens and the earth and controls the balance of nature so that all people can live. Jesus said His “Father makes His sun rise on the evil and the good and sends His rain on the just and the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). What grace!
The focus of this study, however, is to study the grace of God that redeems fallen man. The Lord we serve is full of this grace.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found;
Was blind but now I see.
By: John Newton, 1779
Grace means we do not get the penalty we deserve – eternal damnation in hell for our sins against God. Instead, God rewards heartfelt repentance with the grace that forgives. This is grace in action. It is also identified as the forgiveness that welcomes and adopts us into the family of God and gives us a new beginning. Jesus expressed it as a new birth when He told Nicodemus, “You must be born again“ (John 3:16). The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian congregation, “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). That is grace in action.
When we cry out to Jesus in genuine repentance for our sins against God, we receive the favor of God we do not deserve. God is love, and the grace of God is available even to the unlovely. “All have sinned,” Paul wrote, “and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). But when grace has done its work and “we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:1-2). As born-again children of God we can now stand before God acquitted, justified before God as though our sins never even happened (John 3:16).
Amazing grace.
Think about it. Two great facts stand out. 1) When we are born again 2) we gain access into God’s treasure house of grace. And that means our Heavenly Father bestows favor after favor after favor. The supply never runs out. What a blessing!
God’s greatest act of grace is revealed in the death of Jesus on a cruel cross when He suffered beyond imagination and died in our place. Jesus death mirrors the great love of God that reaches down to us and picks us up. This too is grace in action.
The economy of the world is built on the principle we are all trained to take a job and expect to get our paycheck, earning our livelihood. But the grace of God cannot be earned. In fact, we do not deserve and cannot earn eternal life with God in His heaven. But grace, ah! “By grace you are saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-10). “The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
The grace of God, expressed as His abounding mercy gives us the opportunity to leave our old life and make a new beginning. The woman caught in the act of adultery illustrates it. Moses’ Law said her penalty was death by stoning. But Jesus said to her, “Go and sin no more” (John 8:11). The grace of God forgave her and at the same time called her to a new life of holy living. Instead of the Judge of all the earth decreeing the eternal punishment the woman deserved, Jesus gave her grace wrapped in the ribbons of a clean new life. She received what she did not deserve – eternal favor with Jesus Christ our Lord.
Grace – what an unspeakably magnificent gift!
Think about it. “The grace of God has appeared bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and live self-controlled and Godly lives” (Titus 2:11). This means we “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ’ (2 Peter 3:18).
It is by the abundant grace of God and the free gift of righteousness that “we reign in life” through one man, Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:17).
God calls us “to a holy life… because of His own purpose and grace” (2 Timothy 1:9).
We gain strength for living “by the grace that is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 2:1). “It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace” (Hebrews 13:9).
We become the servants of God and of one another as good stewards of God’s grace (1 Peter 4:7-11).
“God is able to make all grace abound to you so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times you may abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 2:8-9).
Paul taught the Colossians to let their “speech always be gracious” (Colossians 4:6).
The Holy Spirit gives us the standing to receive grace and “to serve as agents of grace.” We are to encourage one another to continue in grace, including testifying “to the grace of God” (Acts 11:23; 13:43; 20:24). Jesus taught, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you” (John 20:21). The mission of Jesus’ followers is international – taking the message of this grace to the ends of the earth.
When we receive grace we get “grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). And when we “have suffered a little while, the God of all grace… will restore, confirm, strengthen and establish you“ (I Peter 1:10).
This grace of God is everlasting. “We are to set our hope fully on the grace that will be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ” who gives us strength to stand (1 Peter 1:13).
The Gospel is good news about God’s grace through Jesus. This is why Paul identified it as “the Gospel of the grace of God” and “the word of His grace” (Acts 14:3; 20:24). “We have all received grace upon grace” (John 1:16).
Grace was certainly extended to me when I was flat on my back in the hospital suffering with the Corona Virus that killed millions around the world. My fever climbed to 104, my oxygen level was in the low 60’s, I was borderline septic and my lungs borderline pneumonia. I could say only two or three words before going into uncontrollable coughing. Our home was in Canadian County adjacent to Oklahoma City. I was the fourth patient to be admitted to the hospital for the virus, and the doctors at that time had no protocol for defeating the killer illness.
My situation was grim.
But God extended grace to me. I’ll never forget it. And a host of friends were showing the grace of God by sending their prayers to heaven for me.
It was almost unthinkable but the doctors sent me home on the 6th day.
Ah! grace. Miraculous grace.
The Apostle John penned his final message in the Revelation that became the last book in the Bible. “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all,” he wrote (Revelation 22:21). Indeed, there is no source of grace anywhere in the world that is equal to “the grace of the Lord Jesus.”
Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believed.
Amazing Grace, by John Newton, is widely recognized as the most famous hymn of all time.
