8:9 grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. The premier example of giving, of course, is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and it is significant that this beautiful gospel verse is given in the midst of Paul’s exhortation concerning the grace of Christian giving. He was the Creator of the entire cosmos (Colossians 1:16), with all its infinite riches, yet He left it all to die a cruel death, utterly impoverished, with even His meager garments stripped away as He was spiked to the cross. See also the even more graphic testimony in Philippians 2:5-8. This great gift of grace is the standard against which our own practice of the grace of giving must always be compared.