Grace! The Apostle Paul spoke about God’s grace in terms that should create a hunger to experience it deeply and often. It is by “grace” we have been saved through faith (Eph 2:8-9 – saving grace). The early church expanded in spectacular fashion owing to the magnitude of grace, (Acts 4:27-35 – great grace). All of Paul’s epistles begin and end with an expression of grace (empowering grace). God gives grace to Paul in answer to his desperate plea for relief from a “thorn in the flesh”, (2Cor 12:7-10 – sufficient grace). Further, Paul referenced a direct correlation between God’s grace and living with authenticity (1Cor 15:10 – grace to be yourself). Grace is available to all, and when responded to with faith, yields wisdom, power, clarity, anointing, heart transformation, and more (Titus 2:11-14 – energizing grace). Finally, Paul calls it grace that Jesus Christ being rich, became poor, so that through His poverty we might become rich (2Cor 8:9 – lavish grace). All of it and much more is God’s grace freely given to us in Jesus Christ!
Next, let’s consider a working definition for grace along with a few clarifying statements. New Testament grace is the unmerited, unearned, and unlimited release of God’s love toward us, empowering and enabling His divine influence in our hearts, along with it’s radical effect in our lives. In simpler terms, experiencing grace is God’s heart coming alive in that person’s heart. Grace is a profoundly transformational experience that brings a human heart into alignment with Christ and His Kingdom. Grace is needed to correctly hear and then appropriately apply New Testament teaching. By Grace alone does anyone truly become more like Jesus in word and deed!
A few further insights can be drawn from an examination of Acts 4:27-35 (reading it before proceeding is recommended). Jesus is the center of His disciples lives, and they have been declaring Him exuberantly. There existed then as now significant opposition to His Lordship being manifest in and through people. A “don’t tell me what to do” bias against Him. Jesus is offensive to many, yet the resistance of people doesn’t alter His plan. God always knows what He’s doing, and His plans don’t change due to popularity considerations. The apostles are profoundly experiencing God’s grace, and are undeterred after being jailed, beaten, supernaturally released from prison, and further threatened. A spectacular miracle has been done, and the Gospel message of salvation through Jesus Christ is rapidly spreading. The disciples gather together to pray and ask God to continue to use them to declare Jesus in word and deed. They feel the house shake as they are freshly refilled with the Holy Spirit, and they continue to declare Christ boldly. God continues working through them with power, evoking the comment, “… and great grace was upon them all…” Their desire to continue openly with Christ despite very real physical threat and persecution is a profound manifestation of God’s grace. While all this is going on the love of God is overflowing so profoundly that they were not limiting what they’d share with each other. The big deal of this story may be the love in their hearts for others. The text goes on to say “… they had all things in common …”. We can only guess how differently this would have looked had they resisted the Spirit of grace that was undergirding their radical demonstration of love overflowing their hearts.
A fresh demonstration of God’s grace is our’s so let’s receive it! Jesus’ followers didn’t go looking for anything except to share Him with others. When the Spirit of God moved in and on them, they yielded, and people were impacted. As we lift Jesus up in our families and in our gatherings, He will draw people to Himself (John 12:32). It is my hope and prayer we can encourage each other to lift Him up in every area of our twenty first century lives, and that He will powerfully draw many more to Him. Eph 6:24 “Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen.”