Friday, March 26, 2021

Ocean of Grace (38): FRIDAY – Medicine For The Soul (p127ff)

 Lent Book: https://www.thegoodbook.co.uk/an-ocean-of-grace

 

My jottings:

 

(Comments welcome)

 

Ocean of Grace (38): FRIDAY – Medicine For The Soul (p127ff)

 

Everything is really grace, undeserved gift, all the way down, for how could we ever deserve or merit favour from God? Our existence, our creation, is a matter of grace. What do we have that we did not receive as sheer gift? Some theologians have sometimes contrasted “nature” and “grace”. Our human nature is certainly fallen and corrupt, but in a way we might say nature is grace. Certainly creation is a free undeserved gift of the overflowing abundant generosity of God. Praise Him!

 

* * *

 

And we should not think of grace as a thing as if it were a substance or a force. It is good to remember that grace is the kindness and generosity of God Himself towards us. It is love to undeserving sinners. It is personal and relational: God relating and acting towards us on the basis of his character not our merit.

 

* * *

 

If grace is “love with stoop in it”, condescension, the love of a prince for a pauper, the rich for the poor, the full for the empty, the Lord for the beggar, the judge for the criminal, consider the grace of Christ, the eternal Son to us sinners. There could be no one fuller, richer, kinder. He gives and gives and gives and never runs out.

 

* * *

 

Christ is honey, cordial for the heart, the concentrated essence of the gospel, for he came from the hive of sweetness to conquer obstinacy with kindness. (After Thomas Watson)

 

Hymn: Wonderful grace of Jesus

 

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsPc-Ix3_ow

 

Words: https://hymnary.org/text/wonderful_grace_of_jesus

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