John 1:16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given.

This first chapter of John is absolutely foundational to Christian faith. It establishes that Christ is pre-existent before all things, and that He is the channel of the Father’s grace to us, His creation. I don’t know how the Jehovah’s Witnesses deal with this, since they insist that Jesus was merely a man, designated as the Son of God. These first 18 verses deserve a lifetime of meditation, but at this moment it is this statement of grace that strikes me most strongly. John ran out of words, trying to describe God’s grace, having to repeat in an effort to express the magnitude of it all. “Fullness upon fullness” and “grace upon grace” wouldn’t get very good marks from a composition teacher! (I think the most recent edition of the NIV chickened out in trying to translate this verse!) John was dealing with the impossibility of describing an infinite God and His unlimited grace toward us His creatures. We need to understand John’s difficulty, at least, even if we also are at a loss in trying to grasp the totality of an infinite Creator. John Newton famously described God’s grace as amazing, and it is certainly that. There’s a reason his hymn is one of the best loved in the whole world! When we lose our sense of amazement at God’s grace we have lost a great deal, because we are starting to slide into a sense of entitlement, when we don’t actually deserve the smallest fraction of God’s grace toward us. We need to understand that we aren’t worthy of salvation, except by Divine fiat. God, completely on His own, declared that we are worthy of His Son dying for us, to cleanse us from our sins and bring us into fellowship with Him as His children. If God said it, that settles it, so we’d better believe it!

This is something I have “known” since childhood, but my grasp of it has only grown over the years, and it’s certainly not complete even yet. Knowing God’s grace, I am all too prone to take it for granted and get careless about my obedience. In other words, I slip into a sense of entitlement, and that’s deadly. My repentance needs to be continuous, essentially, because in myself I am unable to walk in the perfect holiness of Christ. However, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit within me, are very comforting, and I have no anxiety about my eternal home. When I have tasted how wonderful God’s grace is, how can I not share that grace with those around me?

Father, thank You for this reminder. Your grace is indeed the meditation of a lifetime. Help me walk in it without hesitation, proclaiming it boldly and effectively to all I encounter, so that as many as possible may repent and believe, for the their salvation and Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!