God's Grace

Philippians 4:23 “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.”

The 1828 Webster’s Dictionary defines the word “grace” as: Unearned favor; good will; kindness; disposition to oblige another. 2. Appropriately, the free unmerited love and favor of God, the spring and source of all the benefits men receive from him. 3. Favorable influence of God; divine influence or the influence of the spirit, in renewing the heart and restraining from sin. God extends His grace to the very creation itself by merely holding atoms together to keep the universe together, producing order within cosmic chaos intending thereby to “speak” and supply knowledge sufficient to display His very nature and power in such a way that there can be “no excuse” about His existence and care for humanity.

I read that 13 times in the New Testament, this phrase “grace of our Lord Jesus Christ” is focused on “you.” God’s grace is very personal. Everything that He has done is because He loves you and me beyond any grasp of our earthly imagination. No one is beyond the touch of God’s grace: “For the grace of God that brings salvation hath appeared to all men. “We love him, because he first loved us”. God gives us what we do not deserve in grace’s forgiveness and redemption unto eternal life..

But, it is explained also that once, in contrast, God says unregenerate people will turn “the grace of our God into lasciviousness” (looseness; irregular indulgence of natural animal desires; wantonness; lustfulness with a tendency to excite lust, and promote irregular and sinful indulgences) and deny Him who has bought and paid for all the horrible sin that they embraced to spite such grace. In Titus 1:15, the apostle Paul calls such people “abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate”. Right and wrong, virtue and vice, light and darkness, godliness and ungodliness exist in this fallen in sin side of eternity.

The article pints out that the Lord twice focuses His grace on our spirits, indicating God’s intimate knowledge of our innermost thoughts. Paul noted that God’s grace is “exceeding abundant with faith and love”, and he insisted that His grace is designed to be “glorified in you”. Like today’s verse, most of the prayers for us end in “Amen.” And that’s the way it should be.