Just as you begin to think you have an understanding of God’s lavish and extravagant grace, you make a fresh discovery and are left stunned in wonder and amazement.
It happens more and more with the passage of time. The more you understand, the more you wonder if you have even begun to grasp the basics about grace. What you do know however, provokes, entices and results in heart-filled appreciation, praise and worship. It is glaringly obvious to see why.
When you begin to look through the lens and filter of scripture you are easily overwhelmed by the magnitude of the measure of love that God has demonstrated in His dealings with us. God is not a superior form of mankind with greater strength and an enhanced sense of power, authority or ability. Far from it. God is unique, and He is nothing like us. He is the creator, we are the work of His hands.
Not only are His ways higher than ours, His wisdom, power and abilities infinitely more than ours, but He is the only source of grace. God’s grace, at its very weakest is vastly superior to everything we experience in life. It is spectacular and awesome to behold as we encounter it – His grace outdoes sin, for it lifts us higher than the place from which we fell.
There is one thing about grace that you may never have considered before: Grace Can Never Be Reversed. “Where sin abounded”, the Apostle Paul declares in Romans, “grace did much more abound”. Take time to grasp this. The deep, holy, righteous demands of the law can be reversed. How, by the efficacy of God’s grace. The wrath of God is satisfied in Christ on our behalf, and God’s requirements for righteousness are fully met in Christ, for us. Unconditionally.
The terrible, but holy sentence of the Law may be reversed—but that of grace never can. When we stand in Christ, when we are justified, there is no fear of condemnation. I cannot be condemned if I am justified in Him; I am intrinsically and full absolved of all sin by grace. The state of justification is a unvariable one, and is absolutely united to His glory.
“Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
…No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8:33-35, 8:37-39).
Doesn’t that just ignite a blazing fire of love and affection in your heart towards Christ? And all this is yours. Your crimes, if once blotted out, shall never be laid to your charge again.
The justification of the Gospel is no false hope, which may be reversed if you should in future turn aside. No, the debt once paid, cannot be demanded twice—the punishment, once endured, cannot again be inflicted. Saved, saved, saved, entirely saved by God’s grace, you may walk without fear every day of your life, wherever your feet may tread!
