It’s the most famous line ever written about grace by an author not recorded in God’s Word: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”

Every week, around the globe, it’s sung and said uncounted times, bringing joy and certainty to billions of believers. Whole lives are built on this.

But the lived reality of grace requires that we move beyond the first person voice, and grasp our role within the choir. For while grace operates for each of us as individuals, we learn it by and through and with—and for—believers Christ in grace puts near us. “And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor 3:18).

We gather grace from gracious people. We forgive as we’re forgiven. We speak kindly when we listen to kind words. We risk embracing others when we’ve found the deep security of being gripped in love.

A solo Christian is theoretically possible but practically unheard of. God has ordained that all our growth in grace comes through the community of others. We’re taught; we stretch; we struggle; we discover among the others who are also on the journey. From them we gain what no one wretch might ever know:

“Amazing grace, no sweeter words

Were ever sung by choir;

From them we learn the lovely song,

The passion, and the fire.”

Now stay in grace. -Bill Knott