Grace, and Wonder of It!

12/14/2018

Somewhere around the turn of the last century, Annie Flint wrote several beautiful hymns and one of them “He Giveth More Grace” —is the SIMH today. Now this is a great song to wake up singing! Read and digest the words of the 1st and 2nd verses; beautiful poetry, precious promises of God our Father:

1. When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
   When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
   When we reach the end of our hoarded resources
   Our Father’s full giving is only begun.
2. Fear not that thy need shall exceed His provision,
   Our God ever yearns His resources to share;
   Lean hard on the arm everlasting, availing;
   The Father both thee and thy load will upbear.

..and following the thought to completion with this chorus:

1. His love has no limits, His grace has no measure,
   His power no boundary known unto men;
   For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
   He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.

We do have a wonderful Father in Heaven and a very rich and rewarding

Savior in the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

I recommend you look up and watch a two minute video by Ravi Zacharias

about this most remarkable woman and her love for the Lord. If you don’t

cry, you have no soul; if you don’t like it, something’s missing in your spirit.

And if you don’t feel empowered to live in grace as he described her life, we’d

better check your heart-rate.

After being saved in 1964, I was compelled by my upbringing to “join a

church.” Partly because in my religious background people always did and

partly because I wanted to do so. After joining and feeling comfortable in our surroundings there, we joined the choir. We could both carry a tune and we really enjoyed the participation. Our choir master was a man of some years, I think about 77-78 when we began singing. He was a truly nice man who had just lost his wife to a cancer battle. He understood the grace of God better than the previous older men I had been around and readily spoke about it. So we sang about the grace of God a lot.

“Babe” (that’s what everyone called him) was also the Sunday School teacher of one of the adult classes which we attended. One Sunday, at the close of his lesson, he had us all turn to a certain verse in our bibles and we read along with him. Then, he said, “do any of you know what this means?” No one knew. So, someone asked, “Babe, what does this mean?” He said he didn’t know and it troubled him that he couldn’t figure out what the Lord meant in that verse. Here’s the verse: And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob

Babe said to us, “How can that first part be true? all Israel?” We all just sat there as dumbfounded as he was. About 13 years later I was back in that town after learning some things about “rightly dividing the word of truth” and I saw Babe in a restaurant one day. We hugged a great “longtime no see” hug and after greetings, I said I think I can explain that verse now. He laughed and said, “well, maybe, but I doubt it.” I never saw Babe again. I wish now I had pressed the point. But, how much pressing the point should one do when talking to a 90 year old saint of God? (He had a wonderful testimony story, the details of which I cannot do justice.)

Babe told me once when he was probably 80 or older, that he no longer felt any bitterness toward anyone or anything that had come his way in his entire life. (The first 30 or so years of which were fraught with rough, on the road, vaudeville involvement and the making of several enemies, he once told me.) When he said he had “no guile” I must have looked quizzical, then he answered the Lord’s grace takes that all away, if we let it.

I know that grace. I’ll speak more about it as time goes on, but I can honestly tell you there isn’t anyone I feel angry toward or bitterness against. Some of you might think differently about me on the basis of partial information. But there is no place in my life, i.e., the rest of my days, for anything of the sort.

This doesn’t mean that I just looove everybody and wish to be around them. No, there are several people I will always choose to not be around. But, that is very Scriptural. I don’t hate or cast bitterness at their lives, though. Recently, I prayed for one of these people because of his illness. He got well, and the very first thing he said after returning to his normal routine was so far off what the Lord’s will is, it almost made me wish I hadn’t prayed for him!! Obviously, just kidding, he didn’t get well because I was the one praying, anyway. More to come.

Thanks for reading, the Elder