In Paul’s writings we can see what the grace of God is: grace is nothing outward like a material possession that God gives us, neither is grace merely unmerited favor; grace is God Himself in Christ as the Spirit given to us, gained by us, and enjoyed by us so that our living may be the living of grace.
When Paul came to Miletus, he called for the elders from Ephesus to come to him, and had a long discourse with them; he then said that he wants to solemnly testify of the gospel of the grace of God, and he entrusted the saints to God and to the word of His grace (see Acts 20).
The ministry that Paul received from the Lord was to testify to the gospel of the grace of God; if we don’t understand what grace is, we don’t understand what Paul’s ministry was. Paul exhorted and warned the elders that false teachers would come to speak false and erroneous teachings, but he committed the saints to God and to the Word of His grace.
Grace summarizes the entire ministry that Paul received from the Lord, and the very last verse from his last epistle written to the churches was, The Lord be with your spirit, grace be with you (2 Tim. 4:22).
However, we may have a natural understanding of what grace is; we may think that we’re unworthy, so God gives us grace. This is not wrong, but also it is not complete; Mary found favor in God’s eyes, and she was graced, but grace to her was God Himself coming to her, visiting her, being born in her, and being one with her.
Grace is not just blessings; a hymn says, “count your blessings one by one” – and many times we think that God’s blessings are His grace. Rather, grace is the top revelation in God’s New Testament economy.
In a sense, grace in God’s New Testament economy is the biggest truth and the biggest revelation – it is as important as incarnation, for when God was incarnated, He became grace to us, and grace came through the Word becoming flesh. Amen!
We as believers in Christ have God in Christ as the Spirit in us to be with us, be enjoyed by us, and be our everything, so that we may also minister grace to others; this is our stewardship of grace.
Grace is God’s Visitation to Stay in man, be Born in man, and be One with man
The first mention of grace in the New Testament is in Luke 1:30 where we see that Mary found grace with God (see Luke 1:28, 30; Matt. 1:18); here grace is not merely unmerited favor but much more: God came to visit Mary, be born in Mary, and be one with Mary for the producing of Christ, the God-man.
Grace is God’s visitation; in the Old Testament God would visit His people and then leave – He visited Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Gideon, and many others, but then He left. In the New Testament God comes in Christ as the Spirit to stay with us, be born in us, and be one with us.
The principle of grace in the New Testament is clear: God wants to visit man, stay with man, be born in man, and be one with man. In 2 Tim. 4:22 Paul says, the Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you.
When we are born again, we are born of God; God is born in us, we are regenerated with His life, and He is here to stay – He never leaves us but is always with us for us to enjoy Him and experience Him as grace. Grace is not a one-time event; Christ is here to stay in us and be one with us!
Even today, during the degradation of the church, we need to enjoy grace with our spirit by turning to our spirit, exercising our spirit, and enthroning the Lord in our being. We need to enjoy grace and flow out grace to others by applying the blood of Christ, pray-reading the word of God, enjoying the dispensing of the Spirit of grace, and being in the church meetings where grace can be seen and touched.
When we exercise our spirit, the Lord is with our spirit, and His being with our spirit is grace being with us.
Lord, thank You for coming to visit us, stay in us, be born in us, and be one with us as grace. We just want to open to You, enjoy You, and experience You as grace. Thank You for being born in us to regenerate us with God’s life and to make us one with You so that we may enjoy You and experience You as grace. Hallelujah, grace is with our spirit! We exercise our spirit to enjoy grace and flow out grace to others!
Our Christian Living must be the Living of Grace to Minister Grace to others
We were saved by grace – not by our own merits, seeking, good deeds, or zeal; now we need to remain in grace and live in grace. Our every day experience as believers must be of grace; our Christian living must be a living of grace, which is to experience grace and to dispense grace to others.
Our living should be a total experience of the processed and consummated Triune God; we should experience grace not merely once in a while but throughout our human living, so that we may fulfill our stewardship of grace.
The New Testament believers’ living under the grace in God’s economy is a total living of experiencing the processed Triune God as grace….A total living means that my entire living is a living of the Triune God processed to be grace in me. It is not a matter of whether or not to judge others; that is not a total living but a fragmented living. A total living means that twenty-four hours a day, whether I am awake or asleep, I take the Triune God as my life and my person. I follow His move; I move with Him. Two spirits become one spirit, two lives live together, and two natures are mingled together. This is the total living of experiencing the Triune God as grace. (Witness Lee, The Law and Grace of God in His Economy)
We need to enjoy the Lord as grace by taking Him as our life and person all the time so that we may carry out the stewardship of grace which He has entrusted to us for the producing and building up of the church (Eph. 3:2, 8). If we enjoy grace, stand in grace, and experience grace in our daily living, we will have grace to speak to others the words of grace for building up.
It’s not only the apostles or the evangelists that can dispense grace into people, but we also, in our living, should speak words for building up and thus give grace to people. We shouldn’t speak corrupt or loose words but that which is good for building up, according to the need, that it may give grace to those who hear (Eph. 4:29).
On the one hand, we need to have a proper human living, laboring with our hands in that which is respectable, and on the other hand we should enjoy God as grace so that both materially and spiritually we can minister grace to others.
Our word should convey grace to those who hear us; we should listen to the Lord, enjoy Him, be instructed by Him, and dispense grace to others through our speaking (Luke 4:22; Eph. 4:29; Isa. 50:4-5). If in the church life we all practice to enjoy grace and minister grace to others, grace will be upon us, and the church will be built up; then, when others come among us, the grace we receive will be visible (Acts 4:33; 11:23).
If we know the grace of God, we will not argue with others, nor will we gossip about things. If we are drawn into an argument, we need to turn to our spirit and stand in grace so that we would speak words of grace and no corrupt words would come out of our mouth.
What God requires us in His economy is for Christ to be grace to us for our enjoyment, supply, living, and experience so that we may become His organism as we live by grace and minister grace to others.
When we as believers enjoy and live out the Triune God, this is expressed in our salvation, our change in life, our holy living, and the gifts we exercise in our meeting, all of which can be seen by others (Acts 4:33; 11:23).
The more we experience grace, the more we can speak the words of grace to build others up when we meet them. Even more, grace is enjoyed by us to such an extent that grace is visible: others see the grace of God in us and among us! We should experience grace to such an extent that grace would be visible to others.
Lord Jesus, may our Christian living be the living of grace, the experience of grace, so that we may carry out our stewardship of grace, the dispensing of grace! May our living be a total experience of the processed and consummated Triune God. We want to experience grace day by day and even moment by moment so that we may stand in grace, be filled with grace, and speak the words of grace to others for building up. Lord, we take You as our life and person, and we want to enjoy You as the embodied grace so that we may minister grace to others and so that grace may be seen among us!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the sharing in the message for this week, and The Law and Grace of God in His Economy, ch. 2 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Gospel (2016 International Chinese-speaking Conference), week 2 / msg. 2, The Gospel of Grace.
- All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
- Hymns on this topic:
# This grace, which is the living Christ Himself, / Is what we need and must experience; / Lord, may we know this grace and by it live, / Thyself increasingly as grace to sense. (Hymns #497)
# Daily I come to be supplied by Your word. / It’s by this supply that I’m richly satisfied. / It’s here that I’m strengthened to live the Christian life. / It’s nothing I do, but Your overflowing grace to me. (Song on experiencing grace)
# If you would like to know this place / Where you’ll find abundant grace, / All that I can say is that you’ll have to “see.” / ’Cause words come short of the appeal— / I just know that it is real— / Once you’ve seen it too, I think that you’ll agree! (Song on seeing grace in the church)
About aGodMan
In the church life, when all the believers have grace upon them, the church will be built up. However, it is easy for us to come out of grace and argue with others. A person who has seen grace knows Christ and has nothing to argue about with others. If a person argues, he does not know grace….You may be full of reasonings and murmurings, but when you turn back to your spirit, you stand in grace. As a result, what comes out of your mouth is grace. In His economy God does not require you to do anything. What God wants in His economy is for Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God, to become the embodied grace to you. He lives in us, and we live in Him as grace. In this way God can obtain His organism.
In such an organic church life, the grace received by the believers is visible (Acts 11:23). The Triune God received and enjoyed by the believers is expressed in their salvation, change in life, holy living, and the gifts they exercise in their meetings, all of which can be seen by others. (Witness Lee, The Law and Grace of God in His Economy, pp. 48, 56, 40-42)
Receive grace and spread grace!