Grace, ‘Tis a Charming Sound

"If your preaching of the gospel of God's free grace in Jesus Christ does not provoke the charge from some of antinomianism, you're not preaching the gospel of the free grace of God in Jesus Christ." ~ David Martyn Lloyd-Jones

How can we not love the word grace? It is probably next to love the greatest word in any language. We throw it around haphazardly with nary a thought. If you look it up in the Merriam-Webster dictionary it means “unmerited divine assistance.” Let that wash over you and meditate on that thought…we often in our daily life forget the unmerited nature of the great forgiveness we have been given. We talk it high and lofty platitudes about it but are so quick to not love others as Christ loves us, or extend them unmerited grace or human assistance when they have had a moment of weakness or fallen short of the mark.

The divine assistance is something we all so greatly need, but also sadly forget is granted to us minute-by-minute each and every day.

Love is the hand and grace is the glove and they fit together beautifully. Please forgive my poor pun but to borrow from Johnny Cochrane; when it comes to the grace, the glove fits and God will acquit! The love of God and the merciful grace we have been extended acquits us and we are declared righteous through the blood of Christ. How can that NOT make us be filled with joy and gratitude on a daily basis?

I love the acrostic for G.R.A.C.E. that I was taught; God’s Riches at Christ’s Expense. Why is Amazing Grace such a popular and powerful song even to those who have not accepted Christ as Savior? We ALL go through life longing for grace to be extended to us, all the while subconsciously knowing in a truly honest moment that we do not deserve it. I embrace this truth but forget to extend grace to the lost and dying world or to look for evidence of grace in my fellow believers.

To be honest I don’t think I can truly appreciate the grace that has been extended to me. In my minds eye I cannot grasp how great is my sin and how totally repugnant to God I am apart from Christ. The Apostle Paul captures it beautifully when he calls himself chief of sinners. It was not a boast or an attempt of false humility; Paul was being completely honest with God and with himself when he acknowledged that in God’s eyes we are ALL the chief of sinners and we have ALL been forgiven for so, so much. I think C.J. Mahaney captures the attitude of Paul when he wrote; "Those who know true joy in the midst of suffering are those who recognize that, in this life, our suffering is never as great or as serious as our sin."

When I was younger my obedience and following of rules was driven by guilt, fear, the expectation of my parents and religious subculture and a begrudging feeling of obligation. I didn’t do it out of any sense or acknowledgement of the mercy and grace that had been granted to me. I had the opportunity to be discipled through the book of Galatians for a year and it was like I had heard the Gospel all over again, but this time through the leading of the Holy Spirit I was diligently seeking rather than going through the motions. It was like I rediscovered grace for the first time and that realization became my Magnificent Obsession…to thank God through my obedience because of grace and not because of guilt, fear or obligation. I am still a work in progress but I LOVE grace and I LOVE the Gospel. I need unmerited divine assistance to just make it through each day.

On a daily basis we need to preach the Gospel to ourselves and let the knowledge of God’s grace wash over us like a flood. Let grace be your motivation to obey, to pursue holiness, to love your wife as Christ loved the church, to put up with that annoying co-worker, pray for that fellow Christian who is all truth but no love, and to show compassion to the graceless world. Let grace do it’s perfect work in you, and me…

“Therefore, since 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.”