GRACE-EXPERIENCED

The greatest expression of God's grace in a person's life is not its demonstration toward others, but its response to God and His cause.

Scott Hafemann

Second Corinthians, Zondervan, 2000, p. 333.

Don’t buy the lie that cultivating condemnation and wallowing in your shame is somehow pleasing to God, or that a constant, low-grade guilt will somehow promote holiness and spiritual maturity. It’s just the opposite! God is glorified when we believe with all our hearts that those who trust in Christ can never be condemned. It’s only when we receive his free gift of grace and live in the good of total forgiveness that we’re able to turn from old, sinful ways of living and walk in grace-motivated obedience.

C.J. Mahaney

The Cross Centered Life, 2002, Sovereign Grace Ministries, p. 39-40. Used by permission of Multnomah Publishers, Inc. Excerpts may not be reproduced without prior written consent of Multnomah Publishers, Inc.

The Scripture is both the breeder and feeder of grace. How is the convert born, but by “the word of truth”? (James 1:18). How doth he grow, but by “the sincere milk of the Word.”? (I Peter 2:2).

Thomas Watson

A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 33.

Grace comes not to take away a man’s affections, but to take them up.

William Fenner

A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 89.

We hold that man is never so near grace as when he begins to feel he can do nothing at all.

C.H. Spurgeon

High Doctrine, June 3, 1860.

The higher a man is in grace. The lower he will be in his own esteem.

C.H. Spurgeon

Between here and heaven, every minute that the Christian lives will be a minute of grace.

C.H. Spurgeon

The “gravity of grace” works like the earth’s water system, which always flows from the highest to the lowest. Just as the waters of Niagara roll over the fall and plunge down to make a river below, and just as that river flows ever down to the even lower ranges of its course, then glides to still more low-lying areas where it brings life and growth, so it is with God’s grace. Grace’s gravity carries it to the lowly in heart, where it brings life and blessing. Grace goes to the humble.

Kent Hughes

To live by grace is to live solely by the merit of Jesus Christ. To live by grace is to base my entire relationship with God, including my acceptance and standing with Him, on my union with Christ.

Jerry Bridges

The way to open our hearts to others is by receiving afresh the grace of God and appreciating what it means: seeing our own need of Christ; coming to receive His mercy; sensing how undeserved His love for us is; remembering how He has also opened His heart to those whose hearts are closed against us. Then we will see that the heart which is too narrow to receive a fellow Christian is too narrow to enthrone the Lord Jesus Christ. But the heart that is opened to receive the grace of Christ will learn to welcome all those whom Christ Himself has welcomed.

Sinclair B. Ferguson

Grow in Grace, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 1989, p. 88-89.

The ultimate test of our spirituality is the measure of our amazement at the grace of God.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Quoted in: Reformation and Revival Journal, v. 13, n. 3, p. 173.

The man who has nothing more than a kind of Sunday religion – whose Christianity is like his Sunday clothes put on once a week, and then laid aside – such a man cannot, of course, be expected to care about growth in grace.

J.C. Ryle

So [God] supplies perfectly measured grace to meet the needs of the godly. For daily needs there is daily grace; for sudden needs, sudden grace; for overwhelming need, overwhelming grace. God’s grace is given wonderfully, but not wastefully; freely but not foolishly; bountifully but not blindly.

John Blanchard
Truth for Life: A Devotional Commentary on the Epistle of James, Evangelical Press, 1986, p. 268.

Grace ceases to be grace if God is compelled to bestow it in the presence of human merit… Grace ceases to be grace if God is compelled to withdraw it in the presence of human demerit.

C. Samuel Storms

The Grandeur of God, Baker Book House, 1984, p. 125.

Sense of sin may be often great, and more felt than grace; yet not be more than grace. A man feels the ache of his finger more sensibly than the health of his whole body; yet he knows that the ache of a finger is nothing so much as the health of the whole body.

Thomas Adams

A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 23.

Motion is the most perfect discoverer of life. He that can stir his limbs, is surely not dead. The feet of the soul are the affections. Hast thou not found in thyself a hate and detestation of that sin whereinto thou hast been miscarried? Hast thou not found in thyself a true grief of heart, for thy wretched indisposition to all good things? Without a true life of grace, these things could never have been.

Joseph Hall

A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 25.

Just as the sinner’s despair of any hope from himself is the first prerequisite of a sound conversion, so the loss of all confidence in himself is the first essential in the believer’s growth in grace.

A.W. Pink

Growth in grace is growth downward. It is the forming of a lower estimate of ourselves. It is a deepening realization of our nothingness. It is a heartfelt recognition that we are not worthy of the least of God's mercies.

A.W. Pink

It is a sure mark of grace to desire more.

Robert Murray M’Cheyne

All grace grows as Love to the Word of God grows.

Phillip Henry

A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 131.

Resolved, to strive to my utmost every week to be brought higher in religion, and to a higher exercise of grace, than I was the week before.

Jonathan Edwards

Resolution Number 30.