Grace for Grace

 

Once the leaves change outside I start decorating for Fall inside.  I can't help myself...every fireplace and buffet and dresser starts sporting Fall leaves, and as my husband says, it becomes Fall until you puke!

I was reading in the book of John yesterday, and hit on one of my favorite passages...

"And of his fulness have we all received, and grace for grace." (John 1:16)

Isn't that beautiful...but then I started thinking, what does it actually mean?  Since I'm not a Bible scholar, I went to the dictionary and looked up the word 'grace'.  I found that in this passage grace is used as a noun, the definition being mercy and forgiveness.  Synonyms are benevolence, charity, compassion, favor, forbearance, generosity, good will, goodness, kindness, leniency, love, pardon, reprieve and tenderness.

All of those above definitions pertain to character attributes of Jesus, do they not?  But then, I also found that grace is a verb.  The definition of grace as a verb is to beautify, embellish.  Synonyms for this are to adorn, bedeck, crown, decorate, dignify, enhance, ornament, SET OFF.

I remembered reading about a woman that had lots of necklaces, and she mostly just threw them jumbled up into a drawer.  But one necklace her husband had given her to mark a special day in their marriage.  That necklace was very important to her, and she put it tenderly in a exquisite box.  The box adorned or enhanced the necklace...it SET IT OFF.

Now look at this scripture again.

"And of his fulness we have all received, and grace for grace." (John 1:16)

Do you suppose that maybe grace is used as a noun in the first part, and a verb in the second part?  In other words, the first grace (noun) is the attributes of Jesus, but the second grace (verb) is our responsibility to adorn the gospel of Christ by our lives and actions.  Do our lives adorn, bedeck, crown, enhance...SET Off the beauty of the gospel?  Or do our lives reflect the antonym of grace (the verb), which means to disgrace or uglify the truth of the gospel?

I am ashamed to say that often my life is the antonym of the verb grace...I am prone to disgrace the gospel.

If you are like me in this respect, take heart!  Jesus said,

"...for without me ye can do nothing." (John 15:5).

I cannot conjure up...all on my...a life that adorns the gospel of Christ, but the Bible says Jesus is more than willing to help me in this pursuit.  All we have to do is ask Him to point out where we are failing, and to give us the strength to succeed. 

May my highest goal and desire be to live a life that adorns the gospel, rather than become a disgrace to it.  DLB