Consume God’s Grace

By Stephen C. Kanski

God is astounding!

And therefore, we should not be surprised when His gifts are similarly magnificent. We see from the Psalms that God is generous toward His people.

Psalm 68:19 Blessed be the Lord, Who daily loads us with benefits, The God of our salvation!

But the most wonderful, by far, of all His gifts is the giving of Himself. I’m not referring, exclusively, to His offering of Himself on the cross for our sins, but rather, what incredible riches that selfless act purchased for us. His suffering of death on our behalf allowed us to become what the Bible calls “the righteousness of God.” Having accepted Christ as our personal Savior, we become worthy to stand before God as dear children of the Most High. See second Corinthians:

2 Corinthians 5:21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Now that we are righteous, it opens up to us all God’s treasures of grace. Grace is the outpouring to us of all God’s goodness, including His actual tangible presence in our hearts, not because of anything we have done, except for believing in His only begotten Son. When the Bible speaks of “Christ in you”, it is not talking of some metaphoric ideal, but of a very present reality of the living God dwelling within our spirits.

So now that we have received this most wondrous of gifts, what impact will it have on us? How do we respond to this new reality?

We simply accept it and allow God’s goodness to flood our spirits, hearts and minds via His own presence. Quite often, the Bible describes this process in a way that is very familiar to us. The scriptures use the analogy of eating and drinking to describe the partaking of the reality of God’s grace in our lives.

Look at Psalm 34:

Psalm 34:8 Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!

And look at the words of Jesus in John, chapter 6:

51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.

Jesus also described the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in this way:

38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

39 (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)

Using a similar analogy, he told the woman at the well:

5 Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.
6 Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.
7 There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.
8 (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.)
9 Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.
10 Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
12 Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?
13 Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:
14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
15 The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.

We see from this that Jesus described the presence of the Holy Spirit as water to the thirsty soul. As so He is! The portrayal of the Spirit as water is not just a clever analogy, but a very real and special reality. What God wants us to do is to learn to draw daily from this great spiritual reservoir that he has placed within us.

This well spring of grace is our daily bread and our much-needed life-giving water. Unfortunately, we can run the risk of neglecting this gift and quenching the Spirit. Jesus told us that we must abide in Him or we will become like withered, dried out branches, good for nothing but to be thrown out and trodden underfoot.

We should approach the Father each day and ask Him to pour out our daily food and drink. We need to meditate on His word and open up our ears of faith to hear what the Spirit is speaking to our hearts.

The apostle Peter described it so eloquently:

1 Peter 2:2-3
2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:
3 If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.

Learn to consume God’s grace!