Grace.  After identifying himself as the author of the letter and his target audience as those who are faithful followers of Jesus, Paul extends grace.

EPHESIANS 1.  This letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus.                                                                                      I am writing to God’s holy people in Ephesus, who are faithful followers of Christ Jesus.                                      May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.

Grace.  Ah, grace.  The name has enjoyed a popular resurgence in the last decade; many of us say ‘grace’ at our evening meal, and it is also the name of my big old lovable dog.  But to really comprehend grace and its impact in our lives, Paul is the master teacher.  He started his letters with it, and ended them too, “May God’s grace be eternally upon all who love our Lord Jesus Christ.”

In our 2012 study of the gospel of John,  (to read:http://pastorwoman.com/FTBAll.aspx?DisplayCategory=The%20Gospel%20of%20John%20&Category=John) we got an up-close and personal understanding of Jesus—the very incarnation of grace.  The grace with which Jesus came, the disposition he had toward us, the way Jesus saw those who needed a healing hand or the touch of love, why, the expression he has in his eyes yet today when he looks at you and me … each is undeserved!  No, we haven’t done anything to deserve it, and sometimes do not even know how desperately we are in need of it . . . how it would change us if only it could touch our lives!  Grace – it just is.  And it is beautiful; yes, grace is beautiful.  Grace always is beautiful, and true grace is always linked with Jesus, hence Paul wrote, ‘May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace …’

This letter of Ephesians is an unpacking of what it means to be ‘in Christ.’  Grace is lavish and not given because of merit or any good thing we might do.  In his letter to the Romans, Paul had described what grace looks like: “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”¹

When trying to grasp grace, I cannot help but think of the poet’s description: I know nothing, except what everyone knows —

if there when Grace dances, I should dance.² 

God’s very language is the language of grace, and he is in the business of extending to us this favor, even though we do not deserve it. God isn’t concerned with fairness in the way we are; actually, grace is strange because there’s absolutely nothing fair about it.

But of course, God’s ways are not our ways, now are they?  “I don’t think the way you think. The way you work isn’t the way I work." God decrees. "For as the sky soars high above earth, so the way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think.”³

I pray grace over you, my dear friends, both near and far. 

The drippings of Grace …

Longing for a scent of a flower we have not found,                        

the Echo of a tune we have not heard,

News from a country we have never yet visited. — C. S. Lewis

What’s your experience with grace?

Have you known and accepted God’s grace?

Has the infinite grace of God changed you?

Do you flow in grace – giving and receiving it freely?

Hmmm . . . can’t really know love without grace

For love ‘believes all things’, bears all things,

and gives the benefit of the doubt . . .

That is grace.

May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.  Christine