Standing Up to Our Eyeballs in Grace!

No blessing from our gracious God is greater than that of "standing" referred to by the Apostle Paul in Romans 5:2, where he states:

"By Whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand...".

No offer is more generous; no gift is more gracious; no opportunity is more available to humankind than this. Anyone can come into God's presence and instantly be aware that he is being privately received. No possibility known to man on earth is so valuable and rare. WE MAY STAND BEFORE GOD. It is not a dessert or a reward. It is because of the gift of His grace.

The significance of standing before God must not escape us. The more we consider the incongruity of this act, the more amazing it becomes. Angels bow before Him. Seraphim cover their faces and feet when they are in His presence. Cherubim will not look upon Him as they attend His glory. Ceaselessly, day and night, living creatures describe His supremacy, His glory and His ascendancy. Demons and all the minions of Hell cringe before Him, and Satan constantly submits to His sovereignty and authority. The universe and all creatures who fill it bow in humble abeyance before its Creator and Sustainer.

But when a human soul steps into redemption's room of saving grace, he stands!!! GOD'S GRACE STANDS MEN UP!! It makes winners out of history's sorriest losers. It makes saints out of Hell-bound sinners. It lifts the sin-scourged soul from the pits of hoplessness, and elevates him to the highest heights of honor. GOD'S GRACE STANDS MEN UP!!

This proclaims the supporting bouyancy of God's awesome grace. It emanates from His gracious nature.

It is an effusion of the kind of Person He is, and it is as big and vast and generous as He is. It flows unendingly into our emptiness. We have within us this huge emptiness that requires fresh, new infusions of God's grace. We are in constant need of being filled and then refilled.

When we are so very dry and bring to Him our little measuring cups of need, He just lets His grace flow into them, and they run over! All of heaven is programmed for giving. By design and nature the action of grace is benevolent. It flows into every crack and corner of our emptiness with His fullness. What a contrast for contemplation! Our emptiness...His fullness!

Copyright by W.L. Boone.

(Anyone desiring the entire message entitled "The Face of Grace" from which this article is gleaned may receive it by e-mailing me at lesboone@juno.com with your PO mailing address.)

How Big is God's Grace?

God's grace is not specific. It is general and comprehensive. It is not available in certain situations, but withheld from others. There are no restrictions or exceptions to its adequacy.

There are no circumstances in any human eventuality that are not covered by His grace. Every promise of God is inclusive and bears on any realm of our need.

God never says that His grace and power are adequate for everything BUT this one, certain kind of eventuality. There just are no categories that are out of or beyond the reach of His grace.

There is hope in any human situation because of His grace. Grace is what brings possibility into hopeless circumstances. Grace is what brings meaning into misery and abjection. Grace is what injects potential into ruin and loss. Grace is what breathes life into the corpse of horrible failure. Grace is the heartbeat and pulse of resurrection. Grace is the green light to regeneration. Grace is the starting gun to trying again!

Grace is the indefatiguable encourager. God's grace insists that we can make it...that we can do it. It never gives up or in. Grace is the drumbeat of perseverance. Grace sees no mountains or valleys...it sees no barriers or chasms. It knows no impossibilities, considers no limitations, and has no restrictions, for grace is born in the character of God.

God's grace missed nothing and identifies with everything. It does not overlook anything. It permeates. It saturates. It touches the tiniest detail and relates to every situational nuance. It even ministers to what we cannot understand about ourselves and our involvements. How great is God's grace!

Whatever aspect or variation of human reason or logic the human mind can conceive of, grace has already been there and asserted provision. Grace is all over the place, like a billion little cheerleaders, jumping and smiling and encouraging! God's grace cannot be excluded if we wanted to or tried to. Grace is effusive and locomotive and pervasive and thermal. It is like the inexorable rising of the sun as it shatters the night and dispels every vestige of darkness.

Everything that comes to us is because of God's great grace. All emanates from this. The start of everything is His grace.

Copyright by W.L. Boone.

(Anyone desiring the entire message entitled "The Face of Grace" from which this article is gleaned may receive it by e-mailing me at lesboone@juno.com with your PO mailing address.)

Why Are We Here?

Our humanity and our mortality are the results of God's grace. I mean by that that when we realize how extremely different and opposing humankind is from God, we wonder why He has the slightest interest in us?

When we view how we treat God, how we treat one another, how we treat ourselves (especially how we generally abuse our minds and bodies), and how we treat our environment, and how we treat our potential, there just is no other explanation for our having being than the grace of God. No being known to us is so selfish, so arrogant, so wasteful, so insensitive, so hateful and vengeful, so hurtful, so domineering and so repressive as humankind. We enslave the weak, impoverish the unsuspecting, take advantage of the trusting and poor, trash the planet and curse God all the while. Why would God...why did God...give us being? If most of us were God, we would have doomed and destroyed us long ago.

The saintliest and the nicest and the wisest and the best of us are a sorry lot when we take any honest look at our myriad imperfections. I am constantly puzzled at how any person could call himself a god...and then try to sell that idea to any other rational being.

The smartest people I have ever known have done some very stupid things. All of us spend way too much time eating crow, getting feet out of our mouths, and wiping egg from our faces to be gods.

If humankind is God's crowning creation (and we are), we have to look beyond the present product to discover why God did it.

There can only be one answer: it is because of His grace. It is only discovered in His grace. The Lord is gracious! God is a giver. He is a sharer. This is what makes Him gracious. It is grace that He does not need me for anything - though I need Him for everything - yet, He seeks me. He wants to let me know Him.

He constantly seeks for my attention so that He may communicate with me. Whatever He gets from our relationship enlarges me and not Him! His relating to us is all of grace.

Copyright by W.L. Boone.

(Anyone desiring the entire message entitled "The Face of Grace" from which this article is gleaned may receive it by e-mailing me at lesboone@juno.com with your PO mailing address.)

Just How "Personal" is God?

Whatever is occurring between you and God is as personal as God with Moses. Whatever it is of God (which is grace) that results in creativity, involves Him with you and me, and that personal involvement is more generative and creative than it is historical. What is meant here is that His relationship with you is original and unprecedented. It is brand new. There is no other like it. I repeat that whatever is occurring between you and God is as unique as it was when He conversed with Moses. God plows ground with you that is eternally virgin, for God is essentially generative in nature...especially in His relationships. His dialogues with you are as creative as a new galaxy or solar system.

It needs to be repeated that "God's involvement with you is more generative and creative than it is historical", and what we see here is that His gracious approach to you and me personally is not a re-run. It is not a repeat. It is not a replica. It is not predicated upon any previous dialogue with any other person...even Moses. His relationship with you and me is not the "cookie cutter" kind where He sort of stamps out another one that He has used from a schematic a few millions times before. It is as personal as personal can be.

The greatest value to be found during one's lifetime must be in the relationships we form and maintain, while the greatest fact of humanity is potential. God graciously extended to each person both possibilities as He reached out to us in Jesus. He is a blank check when it comes to knowing Him, and "the sky is the limit" in our pursuit of Him.

Copyright by W.L. Boone.

(Anyone desiring the entire message entitled "The Face of Grace" from which this article is gleaned may receive it by e-mailing me at lesboone@juno.com with your PO mailing address.)