GRACE AND GLORY

One of my few good habits is to read Charles Spurgeon’s classical daily devotional book, “Morning and Evening.” Wednesday evening’s message struck a note I want to share with you.

Quoting part of Psalm 84:11, in which God’s Word declares, “the Lord gives grace and glory,” Spurgeon simply unpacked this brief phrase. Let me try to follow the example of the “prince of preachers.”

Note first that the Lord gives. His generosity is extravagant. There is nothing good in all the world that He has not given. The Apostle James wrote, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). In other words, every moment of laughter you have ever enjoyed, each morsel of food, every hug, every kind thought, and all the blessings of friendship and family, have issued, each and all, from the generous heart of God. There is nothing good in all of life that did not originate with God.

It is, in fact, the very nature of God to give. In Himself, He is so completely satisfied and overflowing, that God would have to stop being God in order to stop giving.

Chief among God’s gifts is grace. If it weren’t for His grace, not a soul could survive the withering fury of His righteous wrath. It is grace that sent Christ to earth to live a holy life in fulfillment of God’s righteous requirements. It was grace that moved the Father to place upon His Son all His holy wrath for your sins. It was grace that taught you to see your need of a Savior and place your faith in Christ. By His grace God draws to Himself His insurgent creatures, not to make them His slaves, but to bring them into His family and re-create in them His image which they previously rejected by their aggravated rebellion.

It is the everlasting steadiness of God’s grace that gives His children a resilience which marks them with the family resemblance. Whether the economy is booming or busting, He gives grace. Whether you are well or ill, He gives grace. In both plenty and want, He gives grace. In living and in dying, He gives all the grace required for both. Indeed, as the Apostle Paul wrote, “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (Romans 5:20).

With grace comes glory. Mark that little conjunction, “and,” which Spurgeon called “a diamond rivet binding the present with the future.” The gift of grace is God’s guarantee that those who receive it will surely spend eternity with Him in the glory of His presence. If we live in His grace, we will certainly die in His grace, and in His grace enter into the fullness of His glory. The Apostle John declared that there in the city of God, there is “no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light” (Revelation 21:23).

So, believer, are you living by the grace of God into the glory of God? If not, you’re living below your privilege. Step up into His grace and glory!