Focus: The Beauty Of Grace!

Text: Isa.61:3

"To give unto them beauty for ashes…"

The grace of God transforms ashes into beauty. Grace is more than unmerited favor and ability to doing the unusual; it is also beauty. Grace is like a makeup kit with all that makes for beauty and charm in it. The Lord beautifies our lives with the cosmetics of Grace. Grace takes us from the lowest place of wretchedness to the topmost place of honor, from the pit to the palace, from the depth of poverty to the echelon of wealth, from rags to riches. Grace beautifies. Grace turns ugliness into beauty.

God takes us into the beauty shop of Grace and makes us undergo total makeover - a radical transformation.

Let us go through a few Scriptures and see the transforming power of grace. Job says about himself, "Behold, I am VILE" (Jb.40:4). Jeremiah says the same, "I am become VILE" (Lam.1:11). David says, "But I am a WORM, and no man; a REPROACH of men, and DESPISED of the people" (Ps.22:6). Job says, "How much less man, that is a WORM? and the son of man, which is a WORM?" (Jb.25:6). God says about Jacob, "Fear not, thou WORM Jacob, and ye men of Israel" (Isa.41:14). Isaiah, upon seeing the glory of God, declares, "Woe is me! for I am UNDONE; because I am a man of UNCLEAN lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips…" (Isa.6:5). Paul says of himself, "O WRETCHED MAN that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Rom.7:24). Christ describes the Laodicean believers as "WRETCHED, and MISERABLE, and POOR, and BLIND, and NAKED" (Rev.3:17). Jacob testifies, "I am NOT WORTHY of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast shewed unto thy servant…" (Gen.32:10). In 1Kgs.2:26, Solomon says to Abiathar, "For thou art worthy of death." In Romans 3, Paul concludes that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and that the wages of sin is death.

To cap it up, David wonders, "What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?" (Ps.8:4).

Grace takes the vile, the worm, the wretch, the miserable, the undone, the unclean, the blind, the naked, the unworthy, the reproached, the despised, and the poor and transforms him into a person of beauty and glory. God, through grace, makes the poor rich, makes the blind see, and resurrects the dead. 

Grace changes a person from the inside out. No one remains the same after grace has come. Grace touches us in every way - body, soul and spirit.

Paul tells us that God "shall change our VILE BODY, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself" (Phil.3:21).

Grace cancels my moral debts, redeems my soul, turns my ugliness into beauty, unmesses my mess, breaks my yokes and removes my burdens. Grace transforms my life and gives me royal status.

By grace a sinner becomes a saint, a nobody becomes somebody, one doomed to death becomes one destined to live forever with God. What can grace not do in the life of someone who wholeheartedly receives and embraces it? Grace impacts, imparts and beautifies. Appreciate grace and applaud the God of all grace!

by Bishop Moses E. Peter