I have so very much to be thankful for. As I reflect upon where God has brought me from and where He's brought me to, I recognize that it's all a work of His Amazing Grace. One of my favorite studies in the Word of God, concerns His Grace.
We often refer to His Grace in only elementary terms – “The Unmerited Favor Of God” or "The Unearned Goodness Of God".
We often think of just the Redemptive Properties of God's Grace, but Grace goes beyond this point of conversion. Grace also has Enabling or Empowering Properties as well.
Grace is what enables me to preach and teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I have several physical afflictions and disease, some of which you are not even aware, which cause me a lot of pain and there are many days that my physical body, because of pain, is really not up to preaching and ministering, but Grace enables me to do it in spite of adversity.
I am by nature a rather shy sort of person. Most people have a hard time believing that, but when I was a few years younger, I would not have been able to stand in front of a church and speak. Sing? Perhaps yes, but speak? Absolutely not, because I would have been too nervous and shy, but the Holy Spirit, as a work of His Grace has enabled me and empowered me to do what God has called me to do, even though by nature I would not normally do what I do.
And the prayer for our lives, should be, “Lord, grant me the Empowering Grace to fulfill every purpose in my life in which you have ordained for , that through my own strength and power, I would be helpless and unable to do otherwise.”
It takes Grace to be a good Teacher…
It takes Grace to be a good Wife, Mother, Husband or Father…
God grants you specific Grace for the specific task that He knows you must face. Not everyone has been given the same Grace that you’ve been given, because not everyone will need the same grace that you’ll need.
The Grace that you’ve been given for your life, is perhaps somewhat different than what He’s given to me, that’s one reason that we can’t compare ourselves to one another.
When you see someone dealing with a particular situation differently than you would, don’t tell them, “I wouldn’t be doing it that way!”, because you don’t know what God’s plan is in their life and God may be wanting them to deal with something differently than you would deal with it and if so, then God has given them the Grace to do it a certain way and you don’t understand because you’ve not had that same empowering Grace for that particular situation!
You may see someone else in another bad situation and say, “Well, I wouldn’t put up with that!”… And the reality is, you probably wouldn’t put up with that, because you haven’t been given the Grace for that particular situation, but had God ordained you to step into that particular situation, then He would have given you the Grace for it, but He hasn’t, so don’t judge those who are there, by telling them how you’d do it!
I love to study the book of Romans where Paul really deals with our sin problem and the answer for it, because in that book, he really takes the burden off of my human will power and lays it on the Enabling Power of God’s Grace.
In the 7th Chapter of Romans, Paul in essence says, “When I want to do good, evil is right there with me… I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate, I do. I know nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature! O Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death!?”
He’s basically saying, “I know that my redeemer must come from outside of me, because I lack the power within MYSELF to save MYSELF from MYSELF!”
Now the New-Agers and the Humanists and the Oprah Winfrey’s and the Shirley McClain’s and many Word of Faith Preachers among others will tell you differently.
Acts 4:12
“Neither is there salvation in any other! For there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved."
JESUS CHRIST AND HIS FINISHED WORK AT CALVARY IS STILL MAN’S ONLY HOPE OF REDEMPTION!
And somewhere along the way you must come to a place to where you have given up on yourself delivering yourself or helping yourself, by yourself, so that you can experience the power of God’s Grace to enable you to do what you could not do alone.
For some of you, myself included, It was the Grace of God that enabled you to stop smoking!
When you see somebody who’s bound by drugs or any sort of addiction and they’re able to lay that stronghold down and live a life free from the daily struggle of that bondage, you must understand and realize that what you’re seeing is nothing less than a divine picture of God’s Marvelous Grace in action.
A number of years ago, after God had delivered me from drug addiction, I was told by a neurologist and a psychiatrist both that I would always have trouble speaking and gathering my thoughts together and communicating with people, due to the amount of damage that my brain had suffered following the massive overdose that I had and I recognize this morning, that I am not the greatest preacher or teacher, but God had a divine calling upon my life to do what I do and He enables me to fulfill that calling and His Grace defies the prognosis of those physicians who told me that I’d never be able to do it.
If anything ever comes across my two lips that helps you in anyway, shape or form, don’t you dare give me the slightest glory, but you give God all of the praise, because it’s only by His Enabling Grace that I am able to even convey a thought and preach and teach His Holy Word.
Whatever God calls you to… And whatever God gifts you with… He will also grant you the Grace to properly fulfill it and carry it out… He will grant you the Grace to properly handle every gift that He’s entrusted to you.
Trust Him and recognize that if God be for you, who can be against you! His Grace will be sufficient for you always!
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