One morning, when our granddaughter Julia was quite young, she and her Nana were reading the Bible together. They came to the familiar verse, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23).

Julia suddenly jumped up off the sofa and ran to get my father's weathered, marked-up King James Bible that I keep on a shelf in my office and that I had showed her that very morning. "It's very old," I told her solemnly.

She took the ancient Bible in her hand and ran back to Nana, excitedly found Romans 3:23, and read to her, "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."

"Yep," she said triumphantly, "Says the same thing in this one too!"

Sin has been with us from of old and will be with us as long as we live on this earth. But there is something older than sin—something that outlasts it. According to the hymnwriter Julia Johnston, it is the "marvelous grace of our loving Lord, grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt!" The hymn concludes, "Grace, grace, God's grace, grace that will pardon and cleanse within; grace, grace, God's grace, grace that is greater than all our sin!" (© Renewal 1938, Hope Publishing Co. )

Have you received His grace?  — David H. Roper