f forms which the one divine gift assumes.
It is '_all_ grace' which God is able to make abound toward you. So
then, you see this one transcendent gift from the divine heart, when
it comes into our human experience, is like a meteor when it passes
into the atmosphere of earth, and catches fire and blazes, showering
out a multitude of radiant points of light. The grace is
many-sided--many-sided to us, but one in its source and in its
character. For at bottom, that which God in His grace gives to us as His
grace is what? Himself; or if you like to put it in another form, which
comes to the same thing--new life through Jesus Christ. That is the
encyclopaediacal gift, which contains within itself all grace. And just
as the physical life in each of us, one in all its manifestations,
produces many results, and shines in the eye, and blushes in the cheek,
and gives strength to the arm, and flexibility and deftness to the
fingers and swiftness to the foot: so also is that one grace which,
being manifold in its manifestations, is one in its essence. There are
many graces, there is one Grace.

But this grace is not only many-sided, but abounding. It is not
congruous with God's wealth, nor with His love, that He should give
scantily, or, as it were, should open but a finger of the hand that is
full of His gifts, and let out a little at a time. There are no sluices
on that great stream so as to regulate its flow, and to give sometimes a
painful trickle and sometimes a full gush, but this fountain is always
pouring itself out, and it 'abounds.'

But then we are pulled up short by another word in this first clause:
'God is _able_ to make.' Paul does not say, 'God will make.' He puts the
whole weight of responsibility for that ability becoming operative upon
us. There are conditions; and although we may have access to that full
fountain, it will not pour on us 'all grace' and 'abundant grace,'
unless we observe these, and so turn God's ability to give into actual
giving. And how do we do that? By desire, by expectance, by petition,
by faithful stewardship. If we have these things, if we have tutored
ourselves, and experience has helped in the tuition, to make large our
expectancy, God will smile down upon us and 'do exceeding abundantly
above all' that we 'think' as well as above all that we 'ask.' Brethren,
if our supplies are scant, when the full fountain is gushing at our
sides, we are 'not straitened in God, we are straitened in