Grace in Peter’s Epistles: enjoy the Multiplication of Grace by the Word of His grace

As believers in Christ, we have grace with our spirit, for Christ as the life-giving Spirit is giving Himself freely to us and is everything to us and does everything for us; we daily enjoy the multiplication of grace, for grace is being multiplied to us to be rich, multiplying, and abounding in our experience. Amen!

This week in our morning revival we come to a new topic, Grace in Peter’s Epistles.

Grace seems to be such a popular and common word, but it is much more than we understand in a natural way; our understanding needs to be renewed and uplifted so that we may appreciate and enjoy God as grace in our experience.

God’s economy is altogether a matter of grace, for the eternal economy of God is accomplished through grace.

Grace is nothing but the embodiment of the Triune God becoming a God-man with both divinity and humanity.

John 1:14 tells us that God as the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, full of grace and reality; the Word, which was in the beginning with God and was God, became embodied in the flesh to be grace to us.

The law was given through Moses, but grace and reality came through Jesus Christ (John 1:17).

Grace is not something given – grace is a living person, the embodiment of the Triune God in Christ to be the life-giving Spirit coming to us for our enjoyment and experience.

He passed through a process of incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension, and He comes to us to be our everything for our enjoyment.

As we experience this processed and consummated Triune God as grace, we will have one life with Him and we will become one person with Him; we will be united, mingled, and incorporated with Him to have one life and one living.

Such a living with God is a living of grace, a total living of the processed Triune God as grace.

Whether we are asleep or awake, by our enjoyment of God as grace in all the aspects of our living, we experience Him as grace and we live with Him and move with Him.

Such enjoyment and experience of grace will not only cause us to live and magnify Christ in both big and small things but will also make us living and functioning members of the organic Body of Christ, the church.

The issue of our enjoyment and experience of Christ as grace is the church as the Body of Christ.

Such an experience will bring in the living together of God and man and will produce the organism of the Triune God, the church as the Body of Christ.

Even in our work, it will not be us who labors for God but the grace of God which is with us.

Without the grace of God, we cannot live the Christian life; without the grace of God, we cannot have the real service, and we cannot be the organism of Christ as the Body of Christ.

Only that which is out of grace is the real Christian life, and only that which is produced from grace is the organism of the Triune God to become the masterpiece of the grace of God, consummating in the New Jerusalem.

For eternity, God will display the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us. Praise the Lord!

Grace in Peter’s Epistles: Experience the Grace of God to Grow unto Salvation and be Built up as His Spiritual House

The subject of the two epistles of Peter is the universal government of God; even in such books focused on the Christian life under the government of God we see grace, for such a living is altogether a matter of grace.

Although these two books contain only eight short chapters, they mention the word grace nine times; grace is a great matter in the epistles of Peter.

These epistles were written by Peter to those who were chosen by God but were dispersed everywhere and were sojourning among the Gentiles.

Actually, these two epistles were also written to us, for in this world we also are pilgrims and sojourners.

As pilgrims and sojourners, we need to see that, regardless of what situation and environment we are in, we are under God’s governmental dealings.

Although we will have many afflictions, sorrows, and even unjust sufferings, the processed Triune God will come to be our grace.

And through this grace, after we have suffered a little while, God Himself will perfect, establish, strengthen, and ground us in this grace.

1 Pet. 1:2 says, Chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in the sanctification of the Spirit unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, Grace to you and peace be multiplied.

This verse clearly shows that grace is none other than the Triune God working to bring us into the enjoyment of Himself; grace is also the full salvation that God wants to give us.

Peter’s epistles are full of the experience of grace. Because of his rich experience of grace, Peter had many utterances concerning our experience of grace in his epistles.

1 Pet. 1:2 he speaks of multiplied grace, in 3:7 we see the grace of life, in 4:10 the varied grace is mentioned, and in 5:10 we are told of all grace.

Then, in 5:10 we see the true grace. Hallelujah for grace!

1 Pet. 1:10 shows that this grace was to come unto us, and we need to receive grace; v. 13 says that we need to set our hope perfectly on this grace. 3:7 shows us that we need to be fellow heirs of grace through prayer, and 5:12 speaks of our entering into this grace and standing in it.

2 Peter 3:18 says that we need to grow in this grace, and 1 Pet. 4:10 says that we need to learn and exercise to be good stewards of the varied grace of God.

What kind of living will such experiences be produced?

Peter says it will be a living of enjoying the full salvation of the Triune God; this salvation will cause us to take Christ as a model in the days of our sojourning on earth.

Even as we live in man’s unjust system, we enjoy and experience grace, and we take Christ as our model; we, therefore, become His reproduction and live Him out as an excellent manner of life in our work life, our married life, and even in our ordinary life.

Eventually, the result of such experiences and living of grace is that we will grow unto salvation (1 Pet. 2:2) to experience more transformation in our soul, and we will be transformed into living stones and be built up as a spiritual house, a holy priesthood (v. 5).

The more we enjoy the Triune God as our grace, the more we will be able to function in this way.

We will be able to tell out the virtues of Christ and be stewards of the varied grace of God so that we can be built up as the house of God, the dwelling place of God.

The result is the producing of the organism of the Triune God, which is the church as the dwelling place of God.

Thank You, Lord, for coming to us as grace; may grace and peace be multiplied to us in our experience! Grant us to have rich experiences of grace so that we may enjoy multiplied grace and be stewards of the varied grace of God. Amen, Lord, we set our hope perfectly on this grace, and we want to be fellow heirs of grace through prayer. We enter into this grace and stand in it, and we want to grow in this grace so that grace may abound in us and be ministered through us. Keep us enjoying the processed and consummated Triune God as grace so that we may grow unto salvation and be transformed into living stones for God’s building. Amen, Lord, may our enjoyment and experience of God as grace issue in the building up of the church as the spiritual house of God!

Enjoy the Multiplication of Grace in our Daily Life by Receiving the Word of His Grace, His Precious and Exceedingly Great Promises

An amazing definition of grace is that grace is the resurrected Christ as the life-giving Spirit giving Himself freely to us, being everything to us, and doing everything in us, for us, and through us for our enjoyment (John 1:14, 16-17; 2 Cor. 1:8-9, 12; Gal. 2:20; cf. 1 Cor. 15:10).

Paul experienced the grace of God even in his sufferings; he was pressed from all sides, and he was excessively burdened beyond his power so that he despaired even of living; in such a situation he didn’t base his confidence on himself but on God who raises the dead.

The way he conducted in the world, therefore, was not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God.

The grace of God is just the God who raises the dead, the resurrecting God, being our experience.

The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit; He came to give Himself freely to us, to dwell in us, to be everything to us, and to do everything in us and for us and through us for our enjoyment.

The result is that, though we may be the foremost among sinners, we can be those who labor for God yet not us but the grace of God which is with us. Amen!

In Peter’s epistles, we see the multiplication of grace (grace be multiplied to you, 1 Pet. 1:2, 2 Pet. 1:2); the multiplication of grace is the grace that multiplies in our daily life in the full knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

Hallelujah, the grace of God in His economy is rich, multiplying, and abounding (1 Pet. 1:2b; 2 Pet. 1:2; John 1:16; Eph. 1:6-8; 2:7; Rom. 5:17, 21; 1 Tim. 1:14; Rev. 22:21).

Although today we have all received this grace, this grace needs to multiply in us continually; the rate of the increase of grace is not just addition but multiplication – grace increases in us by being multiplied.

We have grace, and this grace is being multiplied, the same grace is being multiplied to more than meet the need.

Grace is multiplied to us through our sufferings, limitations, and weaknesses; grace is Christ as our Burden-bearer, and the more burdens we have, the more opportunities we have to experience Christ as grace (2 Cor. 12:7-9; cf. 1:12, 15).

How does grace multiply in our experience? How can we enjoy the multiplication of grace?

The more sufferings, limitations, and weaknesses we have, the more grace has the opportunity to multiply.

Paul testified that to him it was given a thorn in the flesh and, because of this sickness, he entreated the Lord three times that it might depart from him; however, the Lord said, My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.

The more weaknesses, sufferings, and limitations we have, the more opportunities we have to experience His sufficient grace.

Today Christ is our Burden-bearer; He can bear the burdens that we cannot bear and He can solve the problems that we can’t solve.

Many Christians live a very poor spiritual life because they do not enjoy the multiplication of grace, even Christ as their burden-bearer.

It’s as if they have a very good car in their driveway but they walk everywhere they go, not using the car for anything.

We should not be foolish Christians, those who try to solve things and bear the burdens in and by ourselves; we need to see that Grace is in us to bear all our burdens!

Why do we carry the heavy burdens on our shoulders and hold them in our hands?

May we take the opportunity to give more of our burdens to Him by enjoying His multiplied grace, and letting Him bear all our burdens.

The enjoyment of the Lord as grace is with those who love Him (Eph. 6:24; John 21:15-17; 1 Pet. 1:8).

If we are those who love the Lord in incorruptibility, grace is with us; the more we love the Lord, the more we will experience His grace and enjoy the presence of His grace.

The enjoyment of the Lord as grace with His divine nature is by our receiving and abiding in the word of His grace; this word includes all His precious and exceedingly great promises (Acts 20:32; 2 Pet. 1:4; Eph. 6:17-18).

2 Pet. 1:2 says, Grace to you and peace be multiplied in the full knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord; this knowledge refers to the experiential knowledge.

Then verse three continues to say that God has called by His own glory and virtues, and He has dispensed, transmitted, and infused all things related to life and godliness into us.

Through the precious and exceedingly great promises of God in His Word, we have become partakers of the divine nature.

We can partake of and enjoy the riches of all that God is by receiving and abiding in the word of His grace.

Every day we need to remain in the Word of God and receive by faith the grace embodied in the word.

May we continually partake of and enjoy the riches of all that God is to us through the Word of the Lord!

As we enjoy God in His word, grace is multiplied to us, and we enjoy the multiplication of grace.

Especially in our morning revival time with the Lord, we need to pray over the word of God and allow these verses to become precious and exceedingly great promises to us.

Then, throughout the day, no matter what we may encounter, we can partake of and enjoy more of the riches of what He is through His promises, enjoying the multiplication of grace, for Christ Himself is our Burden-bearer and the One who bountifully supplies us to live Christ.

Lord Jesus, may Your grace be multiplied to us in our daily life in the full knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Hallelujah, the grace of God in His economy is rich, multiplying, and abounding toward us! Amen, Lord, we want to experience You as grace today even in our sufferings, limitations, and weaknesses. May we experience the multiplication of grace even as we go through difficult things. Hallelujah, grace is Christ as our Burden-bearer, and the more burdens we have, the more opportunities we have to experience Christ as grace! Amen, Lord, may we allow You to bear our burdens and minister grace to us in our experience today. We love You, Lord Jesus! We come to You in Your word to receive and enjoy the Lord as grace and to have this grace being multiplied to us!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brothers, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, vol. 1, “Crystallization-study of the Epistle to the Romans,” chs. 19-20, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Grace of God in the Economy of God (2021 International Chinese-speaking Conference), week 4, entitled, Grace in Peter’s Epistles.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater, / He sendeth more strength when the labors increase, / To added affliction He addeth His mercy, / To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace. (Hymns #723)
  – Grace! ’tis a charming sound, / Harmonious to the ear; / Heav’n with the echo shall resound, / And all the earth shall hear. / All sufficient grace! / Never powerless! / It is Christ who lives in me, / In His exhaustlessness. (Hymns #312)
  – Trust Him for the grace sufficient, / Ever equal to thy need; / Trust Him always for the answer, / When in His dear name you plead. / Trust Him for the grace to conquer, / He is able to subdue; / Trust Him for the power for service; / Trust Him for the blessing too. (Hymns #647)