To the Praise of the Glory of His Grace

This phrase comes from Ephesians 1:6 where Paul is talking about our adoptions as God’s sons. This is part of the passage that we covered in our life group last week and I had a question written down in my notes to discuss with the group:

How do you praise the glory of God’s grace?

I think I understand that we can praise God’s grace in our lives. He pours it out on a daily basis, and I know that I can praise Him for that.

I think I understand that we can praise God’s glory, His attributes and qualities.

But what does it mean to praise the glory of His grace? What is the glory of His grace?

I remembered someone saying that glory is the outward manifestation of inward qualities. So then, substituting that definition into the phrase: we are to praise the outward manifestation of the inward qualities of God’s grace.

So, in other words, when we see God’s grace, we should praise it. Simple enough. So I wrote down the next question to ask the group:

What does God’s grace look like?

And I brought that Sunday school answer to our life group. But I left with much more.

We discussed this phrase in some detail, and then went on to talk about how to live out the fact that we are adopted sons of God, and what that means.

Someone mentioned that it helps to trust God with your particular circumstances when you remember what He has done for you in times past. And then it hit me.

Whenever we look back at situations in our lives and recognize that it was God’s grace that got us through, and then we trust God in our present situation, we are praise the glory of God’s grace in our lives.

For example, you remember when the Israelites crossed the Red Sea and God defeated the Egyptians? Well after that they walked into the desert for 3 days without water. They finally came to a place called Marah that had water, but the water was too bitter to drink.

What did the Israelites do? They complained. (And God saved them anyway.)

But, if they had said, “Wait! 3 days ago, God saved us from the Egyptians in a miraculous way. We should pray and ask God to help us and trust that He’ll help us in this situation too.”

They would have been, by their response to trust God in their circumstances, praising the glory of God’s grace.

And now today, I have a choice. I’m tired and weary and don’t want to go to work and face another day. And yet time and again God has in amazing and simple ways that I can trust Him.

So, by His grace and with His grace, I will step out and trust Him and praise the glory of His amazing grace.