Pastor and author H.A. Ironside related a testimony of a new convert who had been delivered from a life of sin. The man gave God all the glory, declaring that he had done nothing to earn his salvation. But, whoever was leading the testimony meeting was not quite satisfied with the way the newly born-again saint had framed his conversion experience, so he said, “You seem to indicate that God did everything when He saved you; didn’t you do your part before God did His?” “Oh, yes,” the new convert replied as he jumped to his feet. “For more than 30 years I ran away from God as fast as my sins could carry me. That was my part. But God took out after me and ran me down. That was His part!”
John W. Stott defined grace profoundly: “Grace is love that cares and stoops and rescues.” And, all who have come to that fountain of God’s grace surely will confess that it is a “fount of every blessing” that will “tune my heart to sing Thy praise”—and so “to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be.”
Author of the immortal hymn “Amazing Grace”—John Newton—once wrote in a letter: “The longer I live the more I am constrained to adopt the system which ascribes all the power and glory to the grace of God, and leaves nothing to the creature but sin, weakness and shame.” The former slave trader who became a pastor in London wrote his own epitaph: “Sacred to the memory of John Newton, once a libertine and blasphemer and servant of slaves in Africa, but renewed, purified, pardoned and appointed to preach that gospel which he labored to destroy.”
A few years ago, God’s sufficient grace was driven home to me—as it has been almost daily, and to most every believer, no doubt—when I visited a dear friend in a hospital rehab unit who had been very weak. A missionary intern was with me, Kelvin Krueger, who was heading to South Africa to serve following his internship. Kelvin, as a child, had undergone delicate surgery to remove a brain tumor, and the fact that he would and could serve in a foreign country was due to the exceeding grace of God. He and I were visiting Thompson Road Baptist Church’s beloved song leader, Lonial, on this certain day. As we prepared to depart from the hospital following our brief visit, I quoted a verse from Psalms before praying, Psalm 84:11: “Our God is a sun and shield: He will give grace and glory.” As I finished the verse, Lonial, in a very weak voice, began singing the chorus to “Where He Leads Me I Will Follow.” After Lonial finished the chorus—“I’ll go with Him, with Him, all the way”—Kelvin, by my side, began to sing the 4th stanza: “He will give me grace and glory, He will give me grace and glory; He will give me grace and glory; and go with me, with me all the way.” I had chimed in, so there was, that day, a “warbling male trio” of sorts—affirming with feeble voices in the rehab unit the glory of the amazing grace of God. It was one of those precious moments. Kelvin, after part of a term serving in South Africa (doctors had informed his parents when they performed the brain surgery their child that he might never walk again) would be called by God’s grace into the ultimate glory of His presence in February of 2021; Lonial had preceded him in his “absent from the body, present with the Lord” moment, in October of 2010, a few weeks after the hospital visit mentioned above.
When I was a student in college, studying for the ministry, a Bible conference speaker, R.T. Ketcham, was a speaker at one of the Bible Conferences held annually on the college campus. I can never forget the message that the (then) old preacher delivered from Isaiah 49:16 about God having our names engraved on the palms of His hands! What grace! But there was another message Dr. Ketcham preached about the all-sufficient grace of God. In part, it went: “I shall never forget those ten short months in 1920, when five times in ten months the lightning stroke of death snatched a dear one from my side, including a father-in-law, a father, and a wife. I shut myself in my room by day and locked myself in my room by night and groped in the cold darkness about me as I looked into the faces of Lois and Peg and said, ‘O God, what. . . ! I wondered about a lot of things I couldn’t see and understand. But one thing was never minus in those cold and dark weeks—the warmth of the everlasting, never failing love of God that wrapped itself around me, drew me to His heart. I heard Him whisper in my ear, ‘Love never faileth.’” Oh, the matchless grace of God.
“He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater, He sendeth more strength, when the labors increase; to added afflictions, He addeth His mercy; to multiplied trials, His multiplied peace. His love has no limit; His grace has no measure; His power no boundary known unto men; For out of His infinites riches in Jesus, He giveth, and giveth and giveth again.” (Annie Johnson Flint)
The story is told of a faithful minister, traveling on a train, who noticed a dejected-looking young man with a tear-stained face sitting near him. Wanting to be of help, the minister asked the young man why he was so cast down. The youth related how he had been a prodigal son and left home and spent his best years in the “swine trough” of the world. Now he was on his way back home, and he was worried that his father would still be angry. He had written a letter, therefore, requesting that a white cloth be hung on the old apple tree in the front yard, near where the train would pass. The white flag would mean “Welcome.” If it was not there, he would just go on, not getting off at the next station. “Please, Sir,” he said to the minister, “will you look for me and see if it is there?” As the train passed the house, the preacher exclaimed, “Look, my boy! The apple tree is covered with white cloths!” The prodigal’s sadness was turned to joy! Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound!” (M.R. DeHahn—Our Daily Bread)
“Grace, grace, God’s grace; Grace that will pardon and cleanse within; Grace, grace God’s grace, Grace that is greater than all our sin.” (Julia H. Johnston)
“That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:21)
YOU and GOD 