Why Paul loved grace (and we do too)
The apostle Paul was the poster child for grace. If the internet would have been invented two thousand years earlier, he immediately would have reserved the website grace.com. If Paul would have gotten married and been blessed with daughters, I bet he would have named them Grace, Gracie, and Baby Grae-Grae.
Why do I think that? Check out this data—Paul wrote 28% of the total words of the New Testament (he wrote 13 of the 27 books, but they’re often rather short). Yet Paul is responsible for 73% of the occurrences of the word grace in the New Testament! Of the 114 total occurrences of grace, 83 of them are from Paul. In fact, every letter that Paul wrote starts with grace and ends with, you got it, more grace. An editor might have encouraged him to spice up his writing with a few synonyms, but Paul insisted in book after book and verse after verse on talking about the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Here’s why: “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect” (1 Corinthians 15:10). Grace both made Paul and changed Paul. Grace was his everything.
Meditate on the meaning of grace, and you might feel the same way. Undeserved love. God’s smile when you assume he would scowl. Favor and blessing, even if you’ve fallen and blown it. Picture God’s face, shining upon you because of Jesus, and you’ll get addicted to grace too.