The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum It is all of grace... Thomas Brooks

Dear Pilgrim,
When I consider distinguishing grace, I think of this verse: I Corinthians 4:7"For who maketh thee to differ? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory? as if thou hadst not received it?"
God alone makes us to differ.
Think of how two babies were in Rebekah's womb, Jacob and Esau, yet God said, "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." God gave his distinguishing grace to Jacob yet bypassed his brother. For no reason but that it pleased God! God puts a division between people. He often brings the sword in families. He has in mine.
I will sing of mercy and of judgment! God is both and I thank and adore Him for showing distinguishing grace to me!
At His name, every knee shall bow!
For his name,
Straitgate

AMEN! to that sister.

Typically, when people read, "Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated.", they ask, "How could God hate Esau?" But those who have been given to know their own sinfulness and unworthiness and something of the unfathomable holiness of God, they typically will ask, "How could God love Jacob?"

Your quoting 1Cor 4:7 vividly brought to mind something Paul wrote a couple of chapters before which has always been a passage that has humbled me, which is too often sorely needed:

God is good.

In His grace,

"If we hear of a person greatly blessed by the sense of Christ’s presence, and so enabled to walk in holiness and much usefulness, we cherish the delusion that he must have been better than the ordinary run of men, certainly not such an one as ourselves. Ah! but how great is the mistake! God fashioneth all hearts alike, and if there be distinctions they are of grace, not of betterness by nature. The most blessed man is still a man." - C.H. Spurgeon

“1 Corinthians 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.”- Apostle Paul

"Noah was a gracious man, one to whom the Lord had shown great favor, for he had put grace in his heart, and had given him faith, for it was by faith that Noah “prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.” The grace of God was within him, and became the source and well-spring from which flowed the righteousness for which he was so remarkable. Grace is the root of every righteous character, so let grace have the honor and glory of it."

– C.H.Spurgeon, #3196 on Gen 7:1