A Devotion from John Henry Jowett

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.

—Ephesians 1:7–8

I walked alone by the incoming sea. I read the words of my text to the accompaniment of the roar and advance of the incoming tide. The onrush of the ocean seemed to get into the words. The grace of the Eternal was rolling toward the human race in a wealthy and glorious flood.

I am grateful for this comment of the ocean tide. I am grateful for its suggestion of energy in the ministry of grace. Grace is too commonly regarded as a pleasing sentiment, a soft disposition, a welcome feeling of favor entertained toward us by our God. [That] interpretation is ineffective. Grace is not the shimmering face of an illumined lake; it is the sunlit majesty of an advancing sea. It is a transcendent and ineffable force, the outgoing energies of the redeeming God washing against the polluted shores of human need.

Grace includes thought and purpose and good will and love. We do it wrong and therefore maim ourselves if we esteem it only as a perfumed sentiment, a favorable inclination, and not as a glorious energy moving toward the race with the fullness and majesty of the ocean tide. Wherever I turn in the Sacred Book I find the mystic energy at work. In every instance it works and energizes as an unspeakable force.

Let me cull a little handful of examples. “Let each one do just as he has purposed in his heart.… And God is able to make all grace abound to you” (2 Cor. 9:7–8). Do you catch the connection? Let each one do, for God will make grace abound. Grace is the dynamic of endeavor! “God our Father by his grace gave us good hope.” We have good hope! The lamp is kept burning. The light does not die out. All the rooms are lit up. Grace is the nourisher of optimism. “It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace” (Heb. 13:9). Grace is the secret energy of a fortified will.

Grace does not flow from a half-reluctant and partially reconciled God, like the scanty and uncertain movements of a brook in time of drought. It comes in oceanic fullness. It comes in “his kindness, tolerance and patience” (Rom. 2:4), “in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.”