THE SCENARIO: Peripatew’s steps are a little lighter these days, having come from a scenario of self-accreditation and valuation, to one of God’s accreditation and valuation. Every action and breath, very life itself, Peripatew knows it all comes by the grace of Jehovah God.
The scenario points below are built around this understanding of the grace of Jehovah God: it is the love of God directed toward a God-rebellious humankind made manifest at two intimately related levels, one spiritual, wherein grace is completely characterized by the Redemption and Salvation of humankind wrought by Jesus Christ, and the other is more mundane, and is characterized by the manifest goodness of Jehovah God in the practical, daily affairs of people. A more formal definition sees God’s Grace as unmerited favor.
In the outworking of this scenario please consider the following:
Sensitivity Points under Consideration
1. Ability and talent are Grace. They Come Not of Self, but from God.
2. The Providence of God is Grace.
3. Hardships and Trial, Physical Death, Are No Less Grace.
4. Walking by Grace Receives the Grace of God.
5. Walking by Grace Extends Grace to Others.
6. Walking by Grace Embraces God’s Redemption and Salvation.
1. Abilities and talent give some people the false notion that they somehow sourced the same. But these are a gift from God that enrich the lives of people, and more so when they are used to bring God glory. The wonderful thing is that everybody, yes everybody, has been graced with ability and talent of one sort or another. But nobody is so able and talented that they do not need to lean on the ability and talents of others to accomplish this and that. That is because ability and talent are not sourced from within; if they were, one could conceivably rise to the level of consummate independence. But that sort of independence at the human level of daily living is inconsistent with reality. God designed it that way, maybe because dependence on others for this and that sets the stage, conditions the heart, for greater dependence on God ultimately, who alone is best able to satisfy these dependencies (so you see, very dependence is grace). Ability and talent are developed of course, but God graces that too: designers of systems know best how to grace their systems so that these realize their greatest potential, and Jehovah God is the quintessential Designer. Christian friend, if you wish, take a moment and jot down three abilities that God has graciously given you. How do you glorify Him with these abilities? And again, when was the last time you glorified Him with these? Was it today? Let us thank our God for this grace of ability and talent.
2. What is the providence of Jehovah God? It is the outworking of His set courses, both at the scale of the universe, and at the scale of individual lives, physical and spiritual lives. The providence of God has purpose. It has as its object of interest, Creation, God’s Creation: created beings, created things. The outworking of God’s set courses for His Creation motivates the providence of God. The Creator manifests an active interest in His Creation by way of Providence. Humankind understands this as ownership-behavior. The Owner, Jehovah God, directly intervenes in the affairs of His Creation, to completely satisfy His purposes for that which He owns and loves. This is Providence. And it is Grace, because the Creator’s most dramatic intervention—Redemption-Salvation—satisfied His purposes for humankind, whom He owns yes, but whom He dearly loves, to the extent even to become incarnate, suffer greatly, and die for rebellious humankind (“A Letter of Invitation, an invitation, background). The providence of God then finds its way into individual human lives to secure Redemption-Salvation for as many would embrace this surpassing Grace, somewhat along the following lines:
God’s set courses are perfectly designed, because God is perfect. Thus, they cannot be appreciated by imperfect creatures without His help, which help is the grace of enlightenment. Enlightenment is grace. Jehovah God enlightens physically—these are His mundane lamps, like for example the revelation of His beautiful and elegant mathematical and natural laws. And He enlightens spiritually—this is the lamp of His Word, to the end that one might behold Him, appreciate Him, appreciate self over against Him—a rebel and sinner—completely unworthy of Grace. He enlightens spiritually particularly so that one might attain to Him, in the One, even Jesus Christ, who revealed God, and who established ready access to God. The providence of God is exceedingly broad; the providence of God, in its human-interest capacity, serves all this Enlightenment to fulfill the salvific purposes of God for individual human beings.
Christian friend, are you sensitive to who you were and now are with respect to the person of Jesus Christ? Can you recount how the providence of God sensitized you to self over against the person of Jesus Christ? How did God bring you into fellowship with Himself? What was the process? The timetable? Events and persons involved? Would you agree that God is totally responsible for your Salvation? Praised and thanked be our great savior God Jesus Christ, the manifest Grace of God.
3. Hardships, trial, physical death, these are what many of us would consider to be negatives, but not necessarily so from God’s perspective. Interspersed aplenty with what many of us would consider to be positives—comfort, sufficiency, joy, fullness of life—God constructs in His people the image of Jesus Christ, precisely in the face of hardships and trial. That one may attain to the person of Jesus Christ is exceeding Grace, for His person is the nature of deity. But what of physical death here? Contrary to the popular notion that one’s death is “untimely,” physical death is always timely, exactly timely, by God’s grace, for the believer and the unbeliever alike. This has more ramifications than we have space to address.
Christian friend, are you suffering? Our heart goes out to you; we wish you were not suffering. But nevertheless, may God be glorified in your suffering dearest Christian friend, as the image of Jesus Christ burgeons forth in you. And as we end this point, we stop and say a prayer for you right here. God bless you brother | sister in Christ.
4. In this point and the next two we wish to turn our attention to practical Grace; walking by Grace. Walking by Grace comfortably receives, easily receives, the Grace of God. There are not a few lovers of Jehovah God who have a hard time accepting His Grace. Pride, work-merit issues, unworthiness issues, you-name-it issues, prevent God’s influx of Grace. Grace is something that comes from God for free. No amount of human currency or effort or worthiness can buy it or earn it. This is so for several reasons: The Grace of God exceeds human valuation estimations; the Grace of God exceeds human capacity to purchase or earn it; and certainly, deity is beholding to no one. God extends His Grace to people for free—that is why it is called Grace (unmerited favor oftentimes). Grace is the kindness of God on display. It reveals His heart, and thus who He is. And the Grace of God is in the face of Jesus Christ.
Now just for a moment, please allow us to address the gainsayers. Suppose Grace were not free (a contradiction of terms if you will please). Then the tangible universe, humankind and everything else, would not exist for want of currency. We would not be having this conversation. We are considering Grace in this scenario precisely because there is such a thing as Grace. Why is this statement such a given? Because Jehovah God by His Grace, and for His and our good pleasure, created the tangible universe. Please note carefully, and mark it down confidently Christian friend: the tangible universe around us did not bootstrap itself into existence in and of itself; this statement is consistent with our stabilizing, empirical, conservation laws. Please note an irrefutable fact: Forces in the universe act in such a way as to lower, not raise, potential [energy]. That is why balls roll downhill, not uphill, for example. The mathematician and physicist will appreciate that this verbiage is summed up perfectly in the following empirical law here shown as a mathematical equation (if you are not a mathematician or a physicist [hurray!] please try to appreciate the gist of what we are pointing out just below—the equation is trustworthy; the important observation is the negative sign—please catch that, if nothing else):
Force = -Del[V],
Where force on the left-hand side of the equal sign represents potential [energy] changing forces, and Del is the 3D (for our purposes) partial derivative operator, which bespeaks of change; crudely put, Del is a “change-operator,” and V is potential—and by that is meant the potential to do work—the potential to do something says it clearly and simply, be it electric, electrochemical, gravitational, thermodynamic, or whatever sorts of potential. Because potential in our context is the potential to do work, which is simply some force or forces acting across some distance, which is precisely understood to be energy, we may immediately associate this equation with energy, and that is why we are putting energy in brackets [energy] above. Again, this empirical law states emphatically that, forces act in such a way as to lower potential [energy] (hence the negative sign before the Del operator). So, the equation is, at the heart of it, a profound yet succinct statement of stability. Things that are profound, yet succinct, are elegant, and such is always the case with Jehovah’s handiwork. May we say lightheartedly, the next time you see a ball rolling downhill dear gainsayer, do not marvel, it is part of the Creator’s set courses for things on this planet He graced so abundantly, even with His personal presence here walking about in time past. And when you see that ball rolling downhill, understand, that the tangible universe did not, nor does it today, muster its forces and “roll uphill” in and of itself. Your statistical models may say that it could (subjunctive mood), but that is a far cry from reality (indicative-realis mood).
Theory loves the subjunctive, and that has its place for sure, but the world in which we live quite stably by God’s grace must, in the end, be engaged in the indicative, like for example the above equation.
The tangible universe is what it is in keeping with the set courses of the Creator, who graces His systems perfectly to satisfy His interests for, and in, them.
Now, what are we to say of the Grace of Redemption-Salvation? For the Grace of Creation pales in comparison to that. But in either case, it is by God’s Grace that we have the one (Creation) and the other (Redemption-Salvation). And this Grace must of course be free, for who but God has the currency to establish either?!
We have tried here to show that Creation and thus Grace is behind the tangible universe (the argument for mundane-Grace), and that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and thus Grace is behind Redemption-Salvation (the argument for spiritual-Grace): we are having this scenario-conversation precisely because there is such a thing as the Grace of God.
5. Walking by Grace reciprocates and extends grace to others. It is a sure sign that those who extend God’s Grace per se have themselves been graced by Jehovah God. Grace appropriately appropriated abundantly apportions also, always; amen.
Christian friend, do you extend God’s Grace to others, having yourself been so blessed by God? How so, how did you extend the Grace of God today? Surely you did, and can name three such avenues of Grace you extended to others today. You probably do not have to think long and hard here, no doubt you can answer this question in just three seconds! God ever bless you dear Christian friend.
6. Walking by Grace is walking in the newness of life here and now and on into eternity. It is walking in the newness of life that Jesus Christ made possible. It is a Spirit-sanctified life going forward, all the way home. Peripatew would put it so:
a.) Spiritual intimacy with Jehovah God—free-flowing prayer going forward.
b.) Jehovah God alone is my exceeding joy going forward.
c.) Transferring all trust to Jehovah God going forward.
d.) An eternal perspective going forward.
e.) Walking like one of the Family of God going forward.
f.) In everything giving thanks going forward.
g.) Feeding the Flock of God at every turn going forward.
Dear Christian friend, did you walk in the newness of life today, the newness of life that Jesus Christ made possible? How so? Pease recall three things you did or thought about today that blessed your walk before and with our great God Jehovah. Well done dear Christian friend.
7. Dearest Christian friend, let us be sensitive to the Grace of God in our lives: it is all around us, one can hardly miss it. And let us ever give thanks for it, and ask the Spirit of God to show us how utilize it for His Glory.
Praised be your Name in all the earth great savior God of Grace. Amen.