I want to continue today with my thoughts on grace taken from 40 Days of Grace by Paul David Tripp. I’d first encourage you to read (or reread) yesterday’s devotion again. (I just did).

“Grace is a wonderful story and the best gift ever.

• Grace is a jewel of God’s character and the only reliable place to rest your hope.
• Grace is a tool that God uses to transform you.
• Grace is a theology that you could study forever and the sweetest invitation you will ever receive.”

Whenever someone asks me how I’m doing I will often answer, “Better than I deserve.”  When you take the time to analyze it, that is the essence of grace. It is often said, “Mercy is not getting what we do deserve; grace is getting what we don’t deserve.”  That is a very good and apt definition of both and it shows the distinction between the two. And both are true to the core. What strikes me, and this goes back to the third bullet point above is this: Grace is a jewel, but as long as I live I will never get to the bottom of it. I will never “mine” it completely. That mine will never play out, never exhaust itself, never run dry. I can unquestionably say that grace is unfathomable.

“Father, may I never stop probing, never stop mining, your magnificent grace. May I never ever feel I have reached the bottom of the well of your grace.”

{Just a note: putting Tripp’s thoughts into bullet points (in blue)  is my doing. I do it for clarity and succinctness. His initial thoughts are in a paragraph. So if there is any lack of understanding or misrepresentation (which I hope there isn’t) it is purely mine.}