This dual salutation is found in all the Pauline letters (with "mercy" add in 1 Tim. 1:2 and II Tim. 1:2). Grace is the divine favor showed to man, and peace is that state of spiritual well-being which follows as a result. More than a casual greeting, it bestows what it proclaims. The Book of Revelation NICNT (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans: 1977) 68

I am certain that I never did grow in grace one-half so much anywhere as I have upon the bed of pain.

Nor can a man with grace his soul inspire, More than the candles set themselves on fire.

Grace is but glory begun, and glory is but grace perfected.

Past grace is glorified by intense and joyful gratitude. Future grace is glorified by intense and joyful confidence. This faith is what frees us and empowers us for venturesome obedience n the cause of Christ. Future Grace (Multnomah: 2005) 47

We have suffered from the preaching of cheap grace. Grace is free, but it is not cheap. People will take anything that is free, but they are not interested in discipleship. They will take Christ as Savior but not as Lord.

Grace is young glory.

Sometimes a sinner parlays with his Savior, wishing he could have a little of the honor of his salvation, wanting to keep some favorite sin and amend the humbling terms of grace. But Jesus will be all in all, and the sinner must be nothing at all.

Law tells me how crooked I am; grace comes along and straightens me out.

Many times I say, "I can't go up the hill once more. I can't do it again." And what is God's answer? Well, first it is important to know that God doesn't scold a man when his tiredness comes from his battles and his tears from compassion. Death in the City (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press: 1969) 69

A state of mind that sees God in everything is evidence of growth in grace and a thankful heart.

They travel lightly whom God's grace carries.

My dear brother, let God make of you what He will, He will end all with consolation, and shall make glory out of your suffering.

Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that 'the just shall live by his faith.' Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise.

The same fire which melts the wax hardens the clay; the same sun which makes the living tree grow, dries up the dead tree, and prepares it for burning. Nothing so hardens the heart of man as a barren familiarity with sacred things... it is not privileges alone which make people Christians, but the Grace of the Holy Ghost.

We love to play on the silver trumpet of grace rather than on the ram's horn of justice.

None so empty of grace as he that thinks he is full.

Many Christians seem to understand the concept of being saved by grace, but they have missed the concept of being sustained by grace.

...what God has done in Christ exhausts all that God has to do for us.

Grace despised is grace forfeited, like Esau's birthright. They that will not have Christ when they may shall not have him when they would.

What is grace? I know until you ask me; when you ask me, I do not know.

Watching criminals going to the gallows, "But for the grace of God there goes John Bradford," exclaimed

God does not give grace freely in the sense that He will demand no satisfaction, but He gave Christ to be the satisfaction for us.

Godly parents have often been afflicted with wicked children; grace does not run in the blood, but corruption does. Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume 2 (McLean, Mac Donald Publishing Company) 507

The Infinite Goodness has such wide arms that it takes whatever turns to it.

Those that have long served God, and been kept from gross sins, have a great deal to be humbly thankful for, but nothing proudly to boast of.

The man who has nothing more than a kind of Sunday religion -- whose Christianity is like his Sunday clothes put on once a week, and then laid aside -- such a man cannot, of course, be expected to care about growth in grace.

This is the mystery of the riches of divine grace for sinners, for by a wonderful exchange our sins are now not ours but Christ's, and Christ's righteousness.

God loves you just the way you are, but he refuses to leave you that way.

In efficacious grace we are not merely passive, nor yet does God do some and we do the rest. But God does all, and we do all. God produces all, we act all. For that is what produces, viz. our own acts. God is the only proper author and fountain; we only are the proper actors. We are in different respects, wholly passive and wholly active.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.

Light Shining Out of Darkness