GRACE: UNMERITED LOVE OF GOD

Grace is the most popular term found in the New Testament portion of the Christian Bible. Grace is used to show God’s unconditional and underserved love by forfeiting His Son, Jesus Christ in the place of the sinners to die on the cross. Grace can be ambiguously used for Love. Grace in the Bible refers to supernatural act of God. It is unhuman, that no one can show unconditional and undeserved benevolence to another person, even to the worst of one’s foes or the unwanted and rejected. The God’s grace is also free. The recipients, according biblical perception of the grace, are merely given freely on a golden plate so as to speak. It is given freely because if price value is placed on God’s grace, it will not in any way enable the recipient of God’s grace to afford it because there is no equivalence of God’s grace to what man can reciprocate. In the New Testament, God’s grace is effected in his act of giving his son Jesus Christ, (John 3:16). God’s giving is because of his love, and His love involves in His only begotten son’s death.


Love in Greek has many distinctive meanings and four of those many meanings are commonly found in the Bible, especially New Testament. They are agape, philos, eros and stomma. Agape denotes God’s unconditional and undeserved love Philos refers to friendly love that people have for their friends. For instance, Peter and John live in the neighbourhood and grow up together as children and later develop a strong bond of friendship. They love each other as best friends. Then we have third kind of love called eros, from which the English word erotic derives from. It is sexual love that a man would have for a woman or husband would have for his wife. The forth one, not commonly used in the New Testament is stomma, is motherly love. Stomma is the love that one would have especially for one’s mother. In Greek, agape is specific, but in English, the word love would be a bit ambiguous and misleading if it is not seen in the context of God’s act of grace.

Agape love that connects to God’s Grace is a love that involves giving of a prized possession or a life for a cause or someone that supersedes love of the one being given. In John 3:16, the agape love is explained clearly. “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son.” As it states, God loved the world so much. The God’s love for the world supersedes his love for His only begotten Son. In others, God holds dearly his only begotten Son, but his love for the world is so much that if He withheld His son, he might lose the world, so he gave his Son. From human point of view, it is irrational. How could God do that when His dear son is so closest than human beings? This is what grace is meant for humans to understand. God plugged his heart away and gave it for humans. God went to the point of having nothing, not even his only son to gain something.

God’s grace is unconditional and undeserved has another dimension. It is for all. In John 3:16, it is qualified by “whosoever”. It is in fact offered. If it is offered, then it must be received by those who see it as being offered. It gives a degree of free choice where decision is made. “Whosoever” implies anybody without qualification and that is humanity not to be determined by conditions set by human standards. Whoever is a divine invitation of grace that is open to anyone of human origin with sinful nature who needs salvation.

Acceptance of Grace is by faith, not by works. No one needs to labour for it or claim any part of the Grace as a result of their labour or effort. Paul explains this so clearly in Ephesians 2: 8-9“ For it is by God’s grace that you have been saved, through faith- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.” In this text, the term gift is also explained. Gift is something, someone endowed you with freely that you have not worked for it or contributed to it or put an effort to it. If you had done all these then it will not be a gift, but a reward or payment for your effort. You would earn it. Here gift is nicely defined as “it is not from yourselves, referring to the recipients of the gift. If it was from yourselves, obviously you would have worked for it so Paul says, ”not by works” and naturally people boast of their achievements. No one should boast because it is not an achievement for their effort, but a free gift. The recipient did not put an effort thus achieved nothing. It is given to them out of sheer love. Jesus explains love. “There is no great love than for one to lay his life for many.” That kind of love is so difficult to be shown by human being as it involves sacrifice even to the giving up of one’s life. It is only possible for God and especially for people who deserved nothing that is why God’s love is called Agape.

Paul explains this love which it makes it more practical for Christian living. It is a century old explanation which has so much juice in it to be squeezed out for use in daily life of human relationship. Here is his explanation in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. ‘Love is patience, Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrong. Love does not delight in evil but rejoice with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. “Paul’s teaching circulated among the Christians of the ancient Corinth at least knew what love is and what love can do if the love is to be shown among the Christian community. This is exactly what God did when he showed grace and love for the lost humanity.

Psalms The Book of Meditation

TEACH ME O LORD, WHAT YOU WANT ME TO DO, AND I WILL OBEY YOU FAITHFULLY, PSALM 87:11a


The psalmist who wrote this verse was thinking of God as a Father whom he can communicate and relate with. This process of communicating with God and taking his word into his heart and obeying it in his life is called meditation. One of the best books written on meditation in recent times is John W.Klenig’s ‘Grace Upon Grace,’ published by Concordia Publishing in 2008. He shared a chapter on meditation where he referred to the book of Psalms as the manual for meditation in the Bible. Klenig quoted Martin Luther, the great reformer, who wrote his commentary on Psalms described meditation as: ‘therefore this lover, the blessed man, has his love, the law of God, always in his mouth, always in his heart, and if possible, in his ears.” After describing meditation as such, Dr. Martin Luther defined meditation as “continual talking and conversation with the mouth.” Meditation is then unceasing talking, conversing with God then taking heed of God’s law, teachings, directions and will for one’s life and follow them faithfully.

Devotional life is a way where one is in constant communication with his God and take counsel of all his teachings and obeying them in his life. God speaks to his people in all situations of their life. The Psalmists who wrote their mediations were incidents of human facets of life one can experience. In those experiences, they confronted God with their happiness, sadness, grief or joy and accepted God’s direction for them. Klenig affirmed the Book of Psalm as an ideal for our meditation for two reasons. One mentioned already that it reflected all situations of life one can experience and two, as Klenig said, “it facilitates meditation that is inspired and produced by the Holy Spirit.” He said, “The Book of Psalms in its present form has been designed to teach people to mediate. It is the biblical manual on mediation. Therefore, editors of the books of Psalm use Psalm 1 as the opening of the book because it speaks about mediation. The Psalms, as Klenig mentioned, “have been produced by meditation on God’s word, are meant to teach God’s people how to mediate on God’s word.” The editors of Psalms did exactly that by teaching the art of meditation by giving the readers a series of meditations on different topics and an invitation to join. The Psalms invite us to identify with the speakers in the Psalm. Take the first Psalm, for instance, and see how you can identify yourself with the speaker.

Psalm 1

Blessed is the man

who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,

Nor stands in the way of sinner,

Nor sits in the seat of scoffer;

but his delight is in the law of the LORD,

and on his law he meditates day and might.

He is like a tree

planted by streams of water,

that yields its fruits in its season,

its leaf does not withers.

In all that he does, he prospers.

The wicked are not so,

but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment,

nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous,

for the Lord knows the way of the righteous,

for the LORD knows the way of the righteous,

but the way of the wicked will perish.



This Psalm basically related to two basic ways of living to different kinds of meditations. They are people who meditate on the teachings of the wicked and those who meditate on the will of God. The writer showed where these two different meditations will lead to. Those meditate on the teachings of the wicked will end up in doom and damnation while those who seek counsel of the LORD’s law will not stand the judgment of the LORD.

Psalm 87:11a tell us that in our meditation with God’s word, God will teach us and we will obey Him and this obedience will yield fruits in our lives, that is, through the power of the Holy Spirit.



Teach us, O Lord, and help us to meditate on your word everyday so that we may have joy in obeying it and bear much fruit, In Jesus ’name. Amen.

TEACH ME O LORD, WHAT YOU WANT ME TO DO, AND I WILL OBEY YOU FAITHFULLY, PSALM 87:11a

I, Me, and Myself


‘I’, It is good to start this Morning Devotion blog within ourselves, the part of us we call it ‘I’, me or myself. I or ego is many times self centred entity that if we do not manage or tame it, it will rebel against us by way of holding our whole body captive to submit to its desires. The self or I is unknown power that rebels against the wishes of spirit of the body. The I, Me or Myself does contradictory things the mind and spirit wish not to do. Paul describes graphically in Romans that “ the good things I like to do , I do not do, but I always do things I do not want to do. It is not me, but somebody inside me that does all those things.” Paul is saying that though he does not like to do those things abominable, he does it all the time. His mind and spirit know that those things are bad and he should not do them. Even though, knowing very well, they are bad, he keeps doing them. So he blames someone, somebody other than himself inside him does those things. He separates I, me and myself from someone else inside him.

Who is this someone else? Paul refers to this someone else as old Adam( Romans 5). It is old “I, me and myself” that lives in us and controls us to do things contrary to our spirit’s desires to produce good fruits of our faith and new life in Christ. When Paul refers to himself as ‘I’ do not do the things I want to do, he is not referring to the “old Adam” I , me and myself, but referring to the new Adam- Christ who lives him and enables him to do things that glorify God. However, the old Adam who continues to be part of our sinful self, rebels against the Spirit of God who dwells in us. The Old Adam causes us to do things contrary to the Spirit. Paul rightly said, our Body is the Temple of Lord because the Spirit lives in us. On the same token, the Holy Spirit constantly overpowers the work of the Old Adam- ‘I, Me, and Myself’ and takes full control of our body. One of its functions is to convict the old Adam to see himself as doings contrary to the desires of the spirit- which we like to call it sin. When Paul realises a power inside him that causes him to do something contrary other than his spirit and mind convict him to do, he correctly points to someone else- this someone else is no other than Old Adam- sinful self, ‘I, Me, and Myself.

What we need to learn from this is that, we must alert like Paul by letting the Holy Spirit help us to see this power. Unless we differentiate our new life in Christ ‘I’ Paul refers to, and the Old Adam, ‘I, Me and Myself’ who rules us over, we will be ‘devil’s workshop’s so to speak and not God’s temple.

It is this desire, “I” “Me and Myself” that brought first man and woman down. When Satan tempted Eve by telling her that when you eat of the fruit, you will be like God, know what is good and what is bad. She told herself, how wonderful is it to be wise? She told herself, ‘I’ want to be like God. How wonderful it is for ‘me’ to be like God? ‘I’ want to know ‘myself’ what is good and what is bad. The self centred ego that lured the woman to now become independent of God and become autonomous, ruling her own life, and making decision of her own and disobedient to be submissive to God s rule.

Paul explains this same human nature of our primeval parent passed down to us, even to Paul who experience’s this inner struggle between the Old Adam and New Adam this way in Romans 5:12 ‘Sin came into this world through one man and sin brought death with it. As a result, death spread to the whole human race because everyone has sinned.’ The very same nature of ‘I’ want to be like God is spread to us, the off springs of the first parents.

Paul explains the cure or way out. His explanation is so simple and yet powerful. Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection is the power for our freedom and way out of this struggle. He uses the analogy of our baptism as an enactment of Christ’s death and resurrection. Our baptism is in fact our participation in Christ’s salvific act of death and resurrection that it has powerful effect in our daily lives. We die with Christ in our baptism, therefore our sin were buried with him in his death and again as Christ defeated the powers of Satan, death and sin by raising up from the death, we too have the power of our baptism to raise to the newness of life in Christ. We are new people, new beings and he says in 1 Corinthians, “it longer I who lives, but Christ lives me.”

How is the relevant to us now as we read this devotion? Martin Luther explains Romans 6 this way in his Catechism: At the close of every day, you make a sign of the cross, thinking of your baptism. In your baptism you died with Christ thus buried your sins. Confess all your sins(both sin of commission and omission) that you commit during the day. Go to sleep in peace believing that Christ washed your sins away, At the dawn of the new day when you wake up, sit on your bed, make a sign of cross to remind you that in your baptism you did not only die with your sin, but rose from the grave to new resurrected life in Christ. Pray that you are a new being, new person in Christ. Pray that God through the power of the Holy Spirit will protect and guide you as you live your new life. Go out to the world, a new person in new life in Christ and work to proclaim the new life or Christ in your work and in your relationships with people around you.

When, like Paul, if the ‘someone else’ inside you makes you to do things the spirit and your mind do not want to you to do, then do the same in the evening. Baptism is a one off act, but living out our baptism is a daily Christian activity or exercise. This exercise will suppress the Old self, Adam, ‘I, Me and Myself’ from taking control of our lives. The key to suppressing all other evil practices and desires and deeds are only possible if we suppress the self “I”. Christ did that even to the cross.

May God give you heart to let God teach you His word. Amen.