GRACE is the free favor of Jehovah, sovereignly fixed upon his people, and righteously communicating all spiritual and eternal blessings to them, for his own glorification. Every spiritual blessing flows from grace. Jehovah, the all-gracious God, is the fountain of all grace. His favor being fixed, he freely communicates to the unworthy and ill-deserving. He delights to give — as he delights to glorify himself. Grace is enthroned, and reigns “through righteousness unto eternal life — by Jesus Christ our Lord.” When coming to God for grace . . .no recommendation is necessary; every fear is groundless, and all your doubts are sinful. (James Smith, the predecessor of Charles Spurgeon at New Park Street)
Here is a paragraph that sets for the concept and the glory of grace, yet is also very instructive to men of what to examine their hearts for. Grace is the FREE favor of God, which is to say that there is nothing men can do to earn or merit it. Grace has no cause (free of cause) other than God Himself, which is to say that there is nothing men can do to merit it or earn it. Grace cannot stand with the merit of men because it is given apart from the righteousness of man (who has none in reality) and apart from the merit of man (who has none in reality). This grace that is from the true God is utterly and absolutely free from the things that men work for. This grace that is from the God who alone is the fountain of grace changes the hearts of men to be holy rather than men becoming holy that they may receive grace.
Grace is sovereignly fixed upon His people. This grace is not given to them so that men can decide what to do with it, but instead it is fixed upon them and it will work in them as He pleases. Men will only be as holy as grace will make them rather than as holy as their wills can make them. This grace is sovereignly placed upon men and as such it is the hands of God to show it to whom He wills and whom He pleases. This grace is sovereignly placed upon men and as such no man can give it or decide who gets it. This grace is sovereignly placed upon men by God and not by a Pope or a priest or a minister. Man should seek God for grace as sovereignly dispensed rather than seek grace as if it came by the works or efforts of man.
If indeed grace is the free favor of God and sovereignly fixed upon His people, this should drive men to want to rid their hearts of all attachment to human merit, worth, and works. The heart is full of self, pride, and self-sufficiency and men are blinded to their attachment to merit, worth, and works. The mouths of men can be full of words about grace while their hearts are attached to human merit, worth, and works. How easy it is to extol the wonders of grace from the basic and sinful principle of self-love. How easy it is to praise God for all that He has done for me without understanding much of grace at all. How easy it is to praise God for a salvation by grace alone and yet have a heart that looks to self for the cause of its own salvation. How easy it is to praise God for a salvation by grace alone through faith alone and be deceived that the faith of that individual is the faith of self and in self.
The heart of man is fixed on self and why he should get grace because of self, but again that is not what the mouth will say. Arminians have words of praise about grace, but they are fixed on their own wills as free to do good apart from grace. Arminians have words of praise about grace, but they are fixed on their wills as making the final choice in terms of salvation. This is to say that they look to self for something to obtain grace rather than to God alone to give grace based on Himself. Oh how the Arminian will eschew the thought that he has or is working for his own salvation, but despite the words that is precisely the theology of the Arminian. The heart of the theology of the Arminian is that his will is free and for a will to be free it must also be free of grace. A will that is free of grace is not a soul that is saved by grace alone. A will that is free is not a will that must be moved by grace to do anything good. A will that is free is not a will that receives a free grace that is sovereignly fixed by God.
What the heart must see is that it must seek the Lord for grace in order to be free from its own thought of its will being free. Grace is sovereign and that is the only kind of grace that there is. The heart must be freed from its own misconception of free-will by sovereign grace. Those who adhere to a doctrinal Calvinism can also be bound to a heart that looks to itself and is blinded by pride of the doctrine to what it really is. The heart is so deceptive that it can be a Pelagian heart holding to a Calvinistic creed or theory. It is not what a person holds in the brain, but instead it is what the soul has in the deepest recesses that determine what it really is. Grace must be more than a theory and actually and really work in souls that long to be free of self and the merits of self.
God Loves... Himself 
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