Sustaining Grace
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 2 Corinthians 12:9
There are two kinds of grace: 1) Saving grace. The moment you place your trust in Christ, God expunges the entire record of your sin. 2) Sustaining grace. Paul writes: ‘I was given a thorn in my flesh…Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness”’ (vv. 7-9). Such vivid imagery! A thorn pierces the soft skin and lodges beneath the surface. Every step is a reminder of it: The child in the rehab center. The red ink on the ledger. The criminal offence on the record. The craving for alcohol in the middle of the day. The tears in the middle of the night. ‘Lord, take it away?’ But what you hear is this: ‘My grace is sufficient for you.’ Sustaining grace promises us not the absence of struggle, but the strengthening presence of God. John Newton, the Anglican clergyman who wrote ‘Amazing Grace’, found that God’s grace was sufficient. On the day his beloved wife, Mary, died, he found the strength to preach a Sunday sermon. The next day he visited church members, and later on officiated at her funeral. Looking back he wrote: ‘The Bank of England is too poor to compensate for such a loss as mine. But the Lord, all-sufficient God, speaks, and it is done. Let those who know Him, and trust Him, be of good courage. He can give them strength according to their day. He can increase their strength as their trials increase…And what He can do, He has promised He will do.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, help me to keep repeating over and over again that Your grace is sufficient for me! Thank You for that fact that I can hold on to – You! In Jesus name, Amen
Weren’t all sins of all people expunged with God’s promise of the Messiah to Adam and Eve after they sinned (objective justification)? Did not that merciful and gracious promise extend from Adam and Eve to all people of all time thereafter? We can certainly lose/forfeit the benefits of that forgiveness (along with salvation and eternal life) by rejecting (refusing to believe) His promise of forgiveness that Almighty God made to Adam and Eve and Jesus “made good” with His atoning self-sacrifice on Calvary’s cross. Mankind receives the forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life that Almighty God promised and Jesus fulfilled for us. There is no conditional have to, must, or ought on our part; Jesus did it all for us. It’s the distinction between objective and subjective justification that must be correctly separated and at the same time properly united so that all glory goes to Almighty God for our rescue, redemption, and reconciliation and all blame goes to sin-rebellious man for his damnation.
Reading this at just the right moment. Unmistakably, God. Thank you for being His vessel.