“To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.”Ephesians 1:6
A poet wrote “Grace! ‘tis a charming sound, harmonious to the ear”. To everyone who has tasted the bitterness of their own sin and has come to know and feel their own depravity, grace is indeed a charming sound. However, it is not so with everyone. There are those to whom the word and the doctrine are bitter to their taste and unpleasant to their ears. Grace is such a singular and absolute principle that it will countenance no rival and will stand for no mixture with it. It resides alone as the means by which God saves sinners. No words can do grace justice! No song can encompass its true melody. No sermon or theological treatise can expound the depths or heights of its glory. Every redeemed person rests in it and is motivated to work by it. It is the source of comfort and conviction, of joy and tears, of desire and fulfillment, of meekness and boldness and those who have experienced the wonder of it are forever enamored by it. Those who have experienced the beauty and the power of it find their mind and heart consumed by it. It is mystery and revelation. Their language is salted with it. Their relationships are monitored and measured by it. Their very soul is permeated with it. They are possessed with a kind of “tunnel vision” that, to the world, seems to borders on fanatacism. Their conversation is so singularly taken wit grace that religion often refers to them as “gracers” or “sovereign gracers” and usually in an effort to disallow them, to mock them. But the recipient of grace can not help himself. He gladly takes up the banner and wears the disdain of the world as a badge of honor. God’s grace is part and parcel of His glory (Exodus 33:19).
