Grace Beyond Measure
So much found between the pages of Scripture is without measure — an unearthly rule beyond our grasp. A Savior’s unbound love that bound Him to a cross. Patience without wane. Grace, also, far beyond our own measure. There is no place we can wander that His grace will not go. There is no hurt, no shame, no guilt that His grace will turn away from. His grace runs deeper than our insecurities. It proclaims His truth over all of our doubts. It meets us in every weakness, as 2 Corinthians 12:9 proclaims, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.”
“Grace” here, traced back to its Greek roots, means, “The divine influence upon the heart, and its reflection in the life.”
This everlasting attribute of God, on display in Jesus as He walked this earth when, “The Word became flesh … full of grace and truth,” as we read in John 1:14, covers us today. As we look to Jesus, the perfect reflection of God’s grace, we too become image bearers of that grace.
The moments of our lives drip with this grace, a pool collecting, a reflection of gifts. Do we see it? How many of these gifts do we walk past, unaware? They live in the cracks and crevices of our days. They hover in our peripheral. They abound all around us, if we’ll fix our eyes to see.
God’s gifts of grace are carried in a kiss under the altar, in the cry of a newborn, in rain puddle splashes under a toddler’s feet, in a flower’s unfurling, in birds’ morning melodies. Grace also lives in the hard spaces of life. In hospital rooms, disappointments, in every tear fallen and counted by our God. Grace is carried in dawn’s light, and along with it, new mercies each morning. Grace is the heartbeat of life.
May we become so aware of God’s mercies, gifts, and delight that these graces pour forth from the seams of our days. May His grace bring an overflow of gratitude in our hearts, and a display of His glory in our lives. As we attune our hearts to receive His gifts of grace, we become bearers of these same blessings in a dark and hurting world.
“But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift,” we read in Ephesians 4:7, but can any of us measure the gift of Christ? His grace pours into us, first into the deepest places, and then to overflowing, spilling out, and touching the lives of those around us. It will touch our words, our actions, and our attitudes. It transforms our hearts. “For of His fullness we have all received grace upon grace,” John 1:16 tells us. Grace upon grace — infinite, always, eternal grace, first reaching out to us, and then pouring forth into this world.
“All the great prevailing grace of God is ours for the drawing on … The overflowing grace of God has no limits, and we have to set no limits to it, but ‘grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.’” — Oswald Chambers
