One of the most famous Christian songs was written by John Newton in the 1700’s. It is about GRACE, a subject often forgotten.

John Newton was once a complete unbeliever. His godly mother died when he was seven, and at age eleven he left school and joined his father’s ship as a seaman. He became very rebellious, falling into all sorts of wicked sin. He captured people from the West-African coast, and transported them to the West Indies and to America where he sold them as slaves. Soon he was captain of his own slave ship in this terrible job.

On one trip from Africa to England in March 1748, Newton became terrified with a storm that threatened to destroy them all. He started reading a book called “Imitation of Christ”, and he began to be convicted of his sin and he eventually came to accept Jesus as his own Saviour.

Soon after he quit his job and began to campaign against slavery, as well as preaching about God’s love that had reached and changed him.
His tombstone in Olney, England contains a great inscription to God’s grace: “John Newton ... once an infidel … was by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned.”

Grace is simply God loving and blessing a person when they do not deserve it and cannot pay for it. Its letters can be used to define it, since grace is God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense – God’s spiritual riches of true peace can come to us for free because Jesus Christ has made peace for us.

Grace is so different from the common idea in the world of how to become acceptable to God. Religions generally tell us that we must do the best that we can to try and make ourselves better – and in this way we can earn salvation from God.

But the Bible tells us that God’s message is different – He informs us that we cannot do anything ourselves to deserve salvation, since we are sinners. Even all the good things that we do are as unacceptable to God as dirty rags if we try to buy heaven with them (Isaiah chapter 64, verse 6). Instead, salvation is the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans chapter 6, verse 23). This salvation was provided by God, when His Son, Jesus, suffered and died for sins on the cross.

Read this verse of John Newton’s hymn, and may God help you to see that by grace you are saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God (Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8).

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.

‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believed.