Grace Amazing

So God laid this on my heart this morning: what is the true meaning of amazing Grace?  It's how a person manifests their favor on, or pardons, someone else.  But that's just normal grace.  That can be granted from anyone at anytime.  It's an earthly grace.  Now, granted, I know grace is appreciated (in most cases) by whoever receives it.  But it still falls short of Heaven.  An earthly grace is granted by humans, who, by the fall, are laced throughout with a sinful nature.  And humans, made in God's image, can possess the mercy to grant grace because God the Father does.  But it's still human - it's not holy.  Can you even begin to imagine - REALLY imagine - what a holy Grace would feel like?  Some have felt it before.  "We have done so not according to wordly wisdom but according to God's grace." (2 Cor. 1:12)

There's only one place to get grace like that: from a Holy God.  A holy Grace is what you get when an invalid is made whole, when the very thing that caused your fears is taken away, it's what leads you when you need a way to get where you're going and then home again.  I know that, several times in the past, I've been so caught up in myself that I didn't know up from down, black from white.  I get lost in my despair and everything is dark.  That's when, without any options or knowing which direction to turn, that same holy Grace has stepped in and brought me safe thus far, and has my fears relieved, and has led me home so that now I see.  "But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect.  No, I worked harder than all of them - yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me." (1 Cor. 15:10)

I also realized how easy it is to take Grace for granted.  When we're raised in a Christian home and brought up knowing what to believe and what to say and how to act, it gets easy to fall into a routine of just following through with those things when we're supposed to, and all that "stuff" just becomes commonplace.  We forget what Grace feels like.  There is a grave danger in that.  When we forget Grace, we fall away from Grace.

But here's the paradox - it's because of Grace that Jesus brought us back from a fall from Grace.  "But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it." (Eph. 4:7)  No matter what we've done or how black our sinful natures are, God grants us the Grace to return to Him.  As finite humans, we tend to rebel and do what we want to do.  And it's when we come back to the throne, and we offer ourselves and our sins to Him that we find Grace again.  Some call it the song of the redeemed.  Some choose the title "Amazing Grace."  Either way, it is amazing and it wants us.  You have a place in Grace.

"For it is by grace you have been saved..." (Eph 2:8)

Amazing Grace
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

 T'was Grace that taught my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear
The hour I first believed.

 Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come;
'Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far
and Grace will lead me home.

 The Lord has promised good to me.
His word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

 Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

When we've been here ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun.
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we've first begun.

- John Newton (1725-1807)