March 23

Unto me.....is this grace given. - Ephesians 3:8.

AUGUSTINE calls the Apostle Paul the “herald of grace.” He well deserves the name. He is always magnifying and extolling it. He never loses sight of it for a moment. He connects it with everything. He connects it with his conversion: “When it pleased God, who called me by his grace to reveal his Son in me, who called me by his grace.” He connects it with his conversation in the world: “Not by fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God we have our conversation in the world.” He connects it with his trials and sufferings: “He said unto me,” says Paul, “my grace is sufficient for thee.” Pie connects it with his unparalleled exertions: “I laboured more abundantly than they all; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” He connects it with his functions: “Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.” As if he had said, This honour has been conferred on me; I have been invested with this office, not for any excellence in me; I did nothing to deserve it; yea, burned with nothing but hatred against it, and compelled men to blaspheme.

O, what grace, grace the most free and sovereign, not only to have pardoned me, but also to have employed me, and made me the messenger of his heart’s compassion, to go forth and announce to the perishing human race that “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” What grace is there here; so that both as a Christian and an Apostle he was constrained gratefully to exclaim, “By the grace of God I am what I am.” Earthly princes when they want ministers, or masters when they want servants, will be sure to take those who seem the most meritorious, and who already possess the qualities and excellencies they require in them. In calling his servants, God frequently takes the most unsuitable and the most inadequate, and qualifies them for the work he assigns to them, in order to show that the excellency of the power is of himself, and not of man.

Man needs instruments, God does not. It is true he employs them, but never from weakness, always from wisdom, in grace and kindness. Men depend upon their instruments; God’s instruments depend upon him for every purpose and in every work.