The Grace of God
“Why have I found grace in thine eyes,
that thou shouldest take knowledge of me…”
Ruth 2:10
Rightly received, God’s grace culminates in humility and worship. God’s grace is a revelation of His condescension to our lowly estate, a mercy that staggers our senses.
Grace has a devastating effect concerning the merits of self and leaves an indelible mark of His ownership upon our hearts. Paul pleaded with the people of God not to receive “the grace of God in vain.”
“We then, as workers together with Him,
beseech you also that ye receive
not the grace of God in vain”
2 Corinthians 6:1
Grace received is to produce those who become “workers together” in the unifying passion to make Him known. True grace fuses us in the bonds of His love and works into us the wonder of the “unity of His Spirit.”
The church at Corinth was one of carnality and division, a clear picture of what we see today. Some declared, “I am of Apollos,” “I am of Paul,” and yet others, “I am of Peter.” Now we say, “I am of the Baptist, Pentecostal, or Pastor so and so,” failing to comprehend that all true ministry is given to culminate in the Unity of the Faith, not individuals having their own following.
If received in its full power, the gift of Grace frees us from the contagion of pride and self-worth. It is God’s means of breaking us that we may flow in a humility of heart whereby we feel the “knitting” of oneness in His Body. Pride is the author of self-sufficiency, isolation, and the tribal spirits that produce sects, denominations, and divisions, so painfully evident today.
Paul declares:
“And the eye is not able to say to the hand,
I have no need of you; or again the head to the feet,
I have no need of you.”
1 Corinthians 12:21 (LITV)
Those abiding in Him “feel” His heart concerning HIS BODY. They are unable to say: “I have no need of you.” Those who live unto themselves have forgotten, having become insensitive in their relationship to His Spirit, unaware that His heart is grieved by such behavior.
“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ
has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father
loves whoever has been born of Him.”
1 John 5:1
It is one thing to be born of God, quite another thing to live in the love of the Father, moved by His Love and “endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit.” Those who live in the Spirit touch the intensity of His Love and will walk carefully in wisdom to abide in that wonder.
Let us read afresh the imploring words of grace that flowed from the Apostle’s heart:
Eph 4:1 “Then I, the prisoner in the Lord, exhort you to walk worthily of the calling in which you were called,
Eph 4:2 with all humility and meekness, with long-suffering, bearing with one another in love,
Eph 4:3 being eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Eph 4:4 There is ONE body and ONE Spirit, even as you also were called in ONE hope of your calling;
Eph 4:5 ONE Lord, ONE faith, ONE baptism,
Eph 4:6 ONE God and Father of all, the ONE above all and through all and in you all.”
Ephesians 4:1-6 (LITV)
SELAH!
His word declares that we are to “walk worthy of the calling” of Him in this world!
May we receive the exhortation of the Spirit of God to become “prisoners of the Lord”; free from our carnality that we may walk in “all humility and meekness… bearing with one another… and being eager to keep the unity of the Spirit”!
Why?
“There is ONE Body and ONE Spirit,
even as you also were called…”
May God impact our hearts again with the passion and power of all His grace is to produce within us so that we do not receive the grace of God in vain.
Love is God’s signature ruling in His own life. Pride is the spring from which bitterness and division arise. Pride is self-sufficient and can easily exist outside of this grace, whereas the Love of God produces a need and longing for a genuine relationship with all who have been “born of God.”
“And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith…”
Ephesians 4:11-13
The ONLY purpose of authentic and valid ministry is to equip the saints for their own work of ministry for each to edify the Body of Christ and to so express the heart of God that we live and abide in the “unity of the Faith.”
There is an indictment of any minister who draws people to himself rather than to Christ. Those who live and minister out of His Spirit seek to produce ministrations of the Spirit that exceed their own. Rather than seeking followers, they selflessly spend their lives to see the people of God unified in Him.
“He who is speaking from himself seeks his own glory, but he who is seeking the glory of Him who sent him, this one is true, and unrighteousness is not in him”
John 7:18
May we be faithful to the Grace of God in Christ Jesus.
“Then I, the prisoner in the Lord, exhort you to walk worthily of the calling in which you were called, with all humility and meekness, with long-suffering, bearing with one another in love, being eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
Ephesians 4:1-3
“Then thou shalt see, and flow together…”
Isaiah 60:5
Related Articles:
Judging of the Shepherds by Tony Puccio
Brian Troxel
Amen 🙏🤗
I fall more in love with Jesus every day. I love my brothers and sisters immensely, but I cannot come into unity and do things the Lord has shown me not to do. I have been accused by certain ones to not be in unity with the Church. I left and had church in my home with 2 others and sought the Lord about where I should be. He told me “I promised you good.” So, I went back, and my accusers had left, and things are getting better! The Lord is good. I see too many loving men more than the Lord. They have no problem with each other, it is the Lord they neglect. They live without His love and are okay with it! That is the sad condition of the Church of today, I believe.
The more we come into unity in Him the more we will be in disunity with the things of earth. It is always encouraging to touch the heart of another whose heart is set upon Him.
Be blessed today and thank you for commenting!
BT
Thank you, Brian.
The grand and glorious grace of our great God is that we are given to His undeserved mercy, His unearned compassion, His unmerited favor. Our receptivity of and responsiveness to His grace is by His divine enablement and His deitific empowerment.
John 1:16 AMP
Out of His fullness [the superabundance of His grace and truth] we have all received grace upon grace [spiritual blessing upon spiritual blessing, favor upon favor, and gift heaped upon gift].
Who believes that unless our forever first Love, our all magnificent Obsession, saves us from ourselves, we cannot be saved? The frigidly, rigidly religious self-righteous, deceived dead?
Titus 3:5-7 AMP
He saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we have done, but because of His own compassion and mercy, by the cleansing of the new birth (spiritual transformation, regeneration) and renewing by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out richly upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that we would be justified [made free of the guilt of sin] by His [compassionate, undeserved] grace, and that we would be [acknowledged as acceptable to Him and] made heirs of eternal life [actually experiencing it] according to our hope (His guarantee).
Ephesians 2:4-10 AMP (emphasis mine)
But God, being [so very] rich in mercy, because of His great and wonderful love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were [spiritually] dead and separated from Him because of our sins, He made us [spiritually] alive together with Christ (for by His grace—His undeserved favor and mercy—you have been saved from God’s judgment). 6 And He raised us up together with Him [when we believed], and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, [because we are] in Christ Jesus, 7 [and He did this] so that in the ages to come He might [clearly] show the immeasurable and unsurpassed riches of His grace in [His] kindness toward us in Christ Jesus [by providing for our redemption]. 8 For it is by grace [God’s remarkable compassion and favor drawing you to Christ] that you have been saved [actually delivered from judgment and given eternal life] through faith. And this [salvation] is not of yourselves [not through your own effort], but it is the [undeserved, gracious] gift of God; 9 NOT as a result of [your] works [NOR your attempts to keep the Law], so that no one will [be able to] boast or take credit in any way [for his salvation]. 10 For we are HIS workmanship [HIS own master work, a work of art], created in Christ Jesus [reborn from above—spiritually transformed, renewed, ready to be used] for good works, which GOD prepared [for us] beforehand [taking paths which HE set], SO THAT we would walk in them [living the good life which HE prearranged AND made ready for us].
The grace of God is such that Christ, the Passover Lamb of Love, the beloved, bold Bridegroom, shall never forget, fail or forsake a single one of His lambs, His love sought, blood bought, being beautified bride.
John 10:9-10, 27-30 AMP
I am the Door; anyone who enters through Me will be saved [and will live forever], and will go in and out [freely], and find pasture (spiritual security). 10 The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance [to the full, till it overflows]. 27 The sheep that are My own hear My voice and listen to Me; I know them, and they follow Me. 28 And I give them eternal life, and they will never, ever [by any means] perish; and no one will ever snatch them out of My hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater and mightier than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are One [in essence and nature].”
Grace is the energy of exceeding expression, the munificence of mighty manifestation, and the determination of dutiful demonstration as the resurrection Reality of Christ Himself to us, in us and through us, by the exercise and practice of faith, hope, and love, for ardently apprehending that for which He has appreciably apprehended us.
Grace is Christ’s kingly kindness in His eternal economy, enabling egress from our egregiously enclosed egos, enlightening our eyes to the excellence and extravagance of ennoblement, overthrowing the harshness and hardness of our hectic, hapless hearts, and overflowing with His liberating Life our limiting lives of listlessness and languishing, to both worshipfully will and to wondrously work His precious pleasure, in His peerless power.
That we experience any extent whatsoever of grace Godward is solely, sheerly, supremely gifted by God, and is not by or in consequence of any innate or generated goodness by self, exerted independent from the graced goodness of Himself, the sovereign God of all grace.
John 3:27 AMP
John replied, “A man can receive nothing [he can claim nothing at all] unless it has been granted to him from heaven [for there is no other source than the sovereign will of God].
Sometimes our hearts want to break for loving Jesus, but let us let them break; His greatly generous gratuity, His gloriously glad grace is ever and always and in all ways our sufficient Source and Supply, our Salt and Song, in season and out of season. Alleluia to our affectionate Amen of and ardent Advocate with our Abba Almighty, His Christ, our Lord Jesus.
To the One Triune God, the God of ALL grace be ALL the glory, now and through all the ages of the ages!
1 Corinthians 1:26-31 AMP
Just look at your own calling, believers; not many [of you were considered] wise according to human standards, not many powerful or influential, not many of high and noble birth. 27 But God has selected [for His purpose] the foolish things of the world to shame the wise [revealing their ignorance], and God has selected [for His purpose] the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong [revealing their frailty]. 28 God has selected [for His purpose] the insignificant (base) things of the world, and the things that are despised and treated with contempt, [even] the things that are nothing, so that He might reduce to nothing the things that are, 29 so that no one may [be able to] boast in the presence of God. 30 But it is from Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God [revealing His plan of salvation], and righteousness [making us acceptable to God], and sanctification [making us holy and setting us apart for God], and redemption [providing our ransom from the penalty for sin], 31 so then, as it is written [in Scripture], “HE WHO BOASTS and GLORIES, LET HIM BOAST and GLORY IN THE LORD.”
Jeremiah 24:23-24 AMP
Thus says the Lord, “Let not the one who is wise and skillful boast in his insight; let not the one who is mighty and powerful boast in his strength; let not the one who is rich boast in his [temporal satisfactions and earthly] abundance; 24 but let the one who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me [and acknowledges Me and honors Me as God and recognizes without any doubt], that I am the Lord who practices lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on the earth, for in these things I delight,” says the Lord.
Amen.
BT
WOW ! ! ! PRAISE the gracious Trinity of living, loving Infinity that: “For it is by grace [God’s remarkable compassion and favor drawing you to Christ] that you have been saved [actually delivered from judgment and given eternal life] through faith. And this [salvation] is not of yourselves [not through your own effort], but it is the [undeserved, gracious] gift of God.” (Eph. 2:8).
EVEN the DRAWING to Christ that we have been saved is our marvelous Maker’s utterly unmerited mercy, munificence, and might. Hearing by the Spirit in Ephesians of HIS DRAWING a moment ago I am absolutely struck and bursting with AWE AND APPRECIATION ! ! ! ALLELUIA ! ! !
So then, as it is written [in Scripture], “HE WHO BOASTS and GLORIES, LET HIM BOAST and GLORY IN THE LORD.”