For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” Ephesians 2:8
I was thinking about the word GRACE the other day. It is a really great word that captures what God brought to us through Jesus Christ. It is such a great theme that you can find TOP 25 SONGS ABOUT GRACE. Or if you really want to dig deeper, there are 4,798 songs listed that have the theme of Grace in them. They are old and they are new… it seems we cannot stop singing about such a wonderful word. Great Bible teachers have written on this subject and warm our hearts. Swindoll, Lucado, Jeremiah, Yancy and others write beautifully about God’s grace.
Years ago, someone defined Grace in an acrostic: God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. That is such good news for all of us. In the Bible we find that people like Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. In the New Testament we find the Messiah bringing forgiveness for sin to sinners, imparting a new nature within the believer, giving us a new destination, giving our minds a transformation from this world, providing sufficient grace for all circumstances, saving us by grace, and giving grace to the humble. It became the key word of greeting from the apostle Paul to the early church.
This one word we cannot seem to exhaust with our singing or our writing. It is a word from our God. The noun GRACE needs adjectives like amazing or marvelous. It is unbelievable and so undeserved. But it is real. John Newton (writer of Amazing Grace) said it has a sweet sound. When you experience the grace of God you are no longer lost… but are found by your Heavenly Father and to our blindness He gives sight. Newton wrote the story of his life on the tombstone of his grave. He wrote: “John Newton, clerk, once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slavers in Africa, was by the rich mercy of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had so long labored to destroy.” That is grace in action.
At age 82 he was told to retire due to poor health and a failing memory. He said: “My memory is nearly gone but I remember two things: I am a great sinner and Jesus Christ is a great Savior."
Let’s keep on singing and writing and living out the GRACE of God. It is amazing and marvelous!!
