Praise God, He has predestinated us unto sonship to the praise of the glory of His grace, and He will display in the ages to come the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus! Hallelujah!
The entire universe will see a display of God’s grace, and we will be a part of the universal display of the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness! Wow!
Grace truly is a tremendous matter in God’s New Testament economy; it is such a great matter that the entire age we’re in right now is called the age of grace.
When Christ came, grace came; grace and reality came through Jesus Christ. Grace is NOT something that God would give us or do for us; grace is the Triune God being dispensed into us for our enjoyment.
Grace in its highest definition is God in the Son to be enjoyed by us; it is not something done or given by God but God Himself to be our portion day by day.
Unfortunately, the enemy has managed to spoil this wonderful matter of grace, and now so many believers think that grace is unmerited favor that God gives us, the sinners.
We need to have an uplifted appreciation of what grace is. God became a man and went through human living, death, resurrection, and ascension to become a life-giving Spirit.
Now He can dispense Himself into us as grace, for He is the Spirit of grace and we can receive Him and enjoy Him day by day, even moment by moment.
God is not in the business of “doing things for us” or “giving things to us”; He doesn’t even want to merely “rescue us” from our pitiful condition and “bring us to heaven”.
What He wants is to dispense Himself into us so that He may live in us and be everything to us, with the result that we become part of His corporate expression by having Him wrought into our being and lived out in us.
So He Himself became grace to us; He came as the embodiment of grace, and this saving grace is God Himself in Christ wrought into our being.
We are saved not only once for all but day by day, even moment-by-moment; our daily salvation is not only from the negative things but much more in His life.
We are in the process of being organically saved so that, as God dispenses Himself into us, we are filled with His life, we grow in His life, and His life becomes our life, His living becomes our living, and He is everything to us. Hallelujah!
The issue of such a dispensing is the church life, a corporate living of God and man – God mingled with man, God wrought into man, and God living in man!
God has predestinated us unto Sonship to the Praise of the Glory of His Grace
Eph. 1:5-6 states that God has predestinated us unto sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, with which He graced us in the beloved.
What is this “praise of the glory of His grace”? Glory in the Bible is God expressed; when God is manifested, expressed, that is glory.
For example, electricity is powerful yet hidden, but when it is expressed in the light bulbs, we see the glory of electricity, the manifestation of electricity.
God is hidden, but Christ came to be the glory of God, the expression and manifestation of God.
The glory of God’s grace means that, as we enjoy God, this enjoyment of God as our portion and our everything expresses Him.
God is expressed in His grace, and as we enjoy God and receive grace, we have a sense of glory, for we express God.
We have been chosen to be holy and we were predestinated unto sonship; we have the Spirit, the life, and the position of the Son, and we’re being conformed to the image of the Son, we will have the completion of sonship, and we will inherit the full sonship! Hallelujah!
The praise of the glory of His grace means that we will praise God and magnify Him, express Him, and manifest Him as we enjoy Him as grace.
Glory is God expressed (Exo. 40:34); the glory of His grace indicates that God’s grace, which is Himself as our enjoyment, expresses Him.
If grace were merely a new car that God gave us or a bonus at work, as soon as the car is used or the bonus is in our account, there’s no glory in it, for they will be consumed and will pass away.
The real grace is the Triune God wrought into us so that God may gain an expression, which is glory.
God has predestinated us unto sonship, and this sonship is this grace; grace will be glorified, and we are to the glory of His grace.
God’s predestinating us unto sonship is for the praise of His expression in His grace, that is, for the praise of the glory of His grace (Eph. 1:5-6).
Today not many praise God because they usually thank Him for doing this or that for them; many times when we say,
Praise the Lord, we mean, Thank You, Lord. But to praise God is to praise Him for what He is and what He does, no matter whether or not we have received any benefits from Him.
When we praise God, we need to forget about ourselves, put ourselves aside, and simply praise Him for what He is and what He does.
God predestinated us unto sonship for the praise of the glory of His grace, that is, for the praise of His expression in His grace.
One day all will see and be amazed that we, the sinners who were usurped by Satan and his demons, have now become sons of God by grace, and there’s the praise of the glory of God’s grace.
Right now we are in the process of being transformed and conformed to the image of Christ, and one day this process will be consummated, and there will be the praise of the glory of His grace.
All universe will see what God has been doing in us, His chosen and redeemed people, and all positive things in the universe will praise Him.
This will take place at the time of the manifestation of the sons of God (Rom. 8:19), and today we cooperate with the Lord in the process of being graced by Him and having Him wrought into our being! Hallelujah!
Thank You, God, for predestinating us unto sonship through Jesus Christ to Yourself, according to the good pleasure of Your will, to the praise of the glory of Your grace! Hallelujah, we have been predestined by God to be sons of God who are graced in the Beloved to have the full sonship to express God in glory! Amen, Lord, keep us enjoying You today as grace. Keep us under the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity until there is an expression, the praise of the glory of His grace! We praise You for what You are doing in us and around us to grace us continually so that You may gain Your glorious expression in humanity to the praise of the glory of God’s grace!
God will Display in the Ages to come the Surpassing Riches of His Grace in Kindness toward us in Christ Jesus
Eph. 2:7 says that God will display in the ages to come the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
This shows us how significant grace is, for the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus will be displayed in the ages to come.
Today we are at the end of the age of grace and the age of the kingdom will soon come; there will be the millennium age and then eternity, and in these ages, God will display the surpassing riches of grace in kindness!
God not only gives us grace: He displays the riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
By faith in Christ, we have been joined to Him, and we are now in the Beloved. In Christ, we are the recipients of God’s grace in kindness and we are to the praise of the glory of His grace.
Just like Mephibosheth, we were far away from God in Lodebar, in a dry place without any water, but God sent men to fetch us and bring us into His house to enjoy His riches.
We still have our crippled feet and we remember that we are supposed to be under God’s judgment, but the King has kindly invited us to His feast, so we put our feet under the table and enjoy Christ as the grace of God on the table with the saints.
We not only were brought back to God’s house but we were also able to enjoy the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness.
In His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus, God has saved us b His grace; it is in such kindness that the grace of God is given to us (Rom. 2:4).
The riches of God’s grace are the riches of God Himself dispensed into us for our experience and enjoyment; such riches, the riches of God’s grace, surpass every limit.
On one hand, 2 Cor. 12:9 says that the grace of God is sufficient for us; in any kind of situation, sufferings, trials, and tribulations, the grace of God is sufficient.
On the other hand, God’s grace is surpassing; His grace is not only sufficient but also surpassing.
The grace of God, which is God Himself dispensed into us for our enjoyment, is not only sufficient but it far surpasses all limitations.
We have many limitations and problems, but God’s grace is sufficient and surpassing!
Praise the Lord, His grace far surpasses all limitations so that His grace with many riches may be enjoyed by us! In the ages to come – in the millennium and in eternity – God will display the surpassing riches of His grace to the whole universe!
We are all waiting for this universally great exhibition when God will exhibit the riches of the glory of His grace in us and through us.
There is no exhibition in the world today that can be compared to this universal great exhibition.
The subject of this exhibition is grace, God in His Divine Trinity passing through a process of incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension to become the Spirit to enter into many sinful people so that He may be enjoyed and experienced as grace by them day by day!
Paul testified in 1 Cor. 15:10 that by the grace of God he was what he was; this doesn’t mean that he was rich and successful but rather, as he was poor and persecuted, he enjoyed the grace of God and did everything in and by the grace of God.
Amen, in the coming kingdom of God, there will be a testimony of God’s grace, how the grace of God reached us for us to experience the Father as the source of grace, the Son as the element of grace, and the Spirit as the application of grace.
And the result is that we become the God-men, the reality of the Body of Christ today and the New Jerusalem in eternity! Hallelujah!
Praise the Lord, God will display in the ages to come the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus! Amen, Lord, we thank You for the riches of Your grace in kindness toward us today. Keep us enjoying You and partaking of You as grace day by day. Oh, what kindness! Oh, what grace! We are saved by His grace shown to us in kindness! Amen, Lord, we are daily saved by the riches of God’s grace being dispensed into us for our experience and enjoyment! Hallelujah, the riches of God’s grace are not only sufficient for us in our sufferings and trials but they are even more, surpassing every limit! Praise the Lord for the riches of His grace toward us! We are looking forward, dear Lord, to the time when God will display the surpassing riches of His grace to the whole universe!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother James Lee, and portions from, Life-study of Ephesians, pp. 49-51, 182-183 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Grace of God in the Economy of God (2022 International Chinese-speaking Conference), week 1, entitled, The Tremendous Significance of the Grace of God as Revealed in the New Testament.
- Hymns on this topic:
– We praise Thee, glorious Father, / As objects of Thy grace, / Who for Thine own heart’s pleasure / Are now before Thy face: / Thy sons marked out for glory / Known from eternity / With Christ Thy Well-beloved, / Object supreme to Thee. (Hymns #36)
– I shall see His glory soon, / When the work of grace is done; / Partner of His throne shall be; / Such is His great love for me! / Lord, it is my chief complaint / That my love is weak and faint; / Yet I love Thee, and adore: / Oh for grace to love Thee more. (Hymns #155)
– We see Thee now, at God’s right hand enthroned, / Vested with honor and with glory crowned; / Blessed Redeemer, Savior, Lord, to Thee / Be all the glory, pow’r and majesty! (Hymns #219)
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