Discerning Grace
GOD’S GRACE isn’t obvious to everyone. When Jesus walked on earth, not everyone recognized He was full of the Spirit, much less the Son of God. Therefore, it was significant that Nicodemus knew that Jesus was a teacher who had come from God. His observation said more about Nicodemus as a man of discernment than it did about Jesus.
It is safe to say that many fail to recognize God’s grace upon Toccoa Falls College. Some people only see the institution’s deficits. Others only perceive the contributions of dedicated men and women. Many would not even consider the bestowment of grace upon the college as even important. At the
other extreme, people are aware that the college is not all that it can be or will be, so they evaluate present grace in comparison to potential favor, relegating to insignificance all that God has and is now doing for the college.
Nicodemus did not recognize all the grace that was in Jesus, but he did witness miraculous signs that could not be explained apart from God. Does the reader likewise discern in the history of the past one hundred years those events that are unexplainable apart from God? We should take courage that the smile of God still rests upon the college. Recognizable grace encourages us to continue to pray for the college that the Lord would make His face shine upon it and be gracious to it. That the Lord would turn His face toward TFC and give it peace.
He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.” (John 3:2)
(By Dr. John A. Harvey, Toccoa, Georgia, TFC President’s Task Force. Taken from the book: Leaves From the Tree God Planted © 2006 by Toccoa Falls College, p.22-23)