My Grace Is Sufficient

Growth in grace is growth downward. It is the forming of a lower estimate of ourselves. It is a deepening realization of our nothingness. It is a heartfelt recognition that we are not worthy of the least of God's mercies.  A.W. Pink

Have you ever looked back over your life and realized how many times God’s grace was sufficient?  Most of us if we are honest don’t want to go through hardship and trial because it makes us feel weak and vulnerable.  The reality of the situation is that God wants us to feel exactly those things.  Why?  Because when our heart and body are broken and bruised, that is when God’s power is strongest. 

When I read about Paul in 2 Corinthians I often wonder what his weakness was that caused him to ask God three times to remove it.  It doesn’t explain what the thorn in his side was.  Often I think it means that he had an illness or injury because that is when I was at my weakest.

Then I started thinking.  What if Paul’s weakness wasn’t a physical injury but maybe his weakness was because he couldn’t get away from those who reproached and persecuted him.  God knew what was best for Paul.  How easy it would have been for Paul to brag about the accomplishments that God was doing through him.  God wanted Paul to remain grounded, meek and humble in spirit.  You can’t do that if you are going around telling everyone how great you are and how much you have accomplished if you think it was all your own strength that made it happen.

When we start thinking that everything we do for God is through our own power, we have lost God’s strength and power.  If our estimate of our abilities and strengths takes precedence over God’s strength we have lost the true power of what God can do in our weakness.  

As we learned with the story of David and Goliath, David’s strength wasn’t in a slingshot and a stone.  His strength was in the power of God through a slingshot and a stone.  Whose power will you choose?   

  

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, I praise You for my weakness.  It helps me to focus on You.  I would rather be meek and humble in spirit and have Your strength than to be mighty and strong by the world’s standards.  Your grace is sufficient for me.

Scripture: Paul’s Vision and His Thorn

I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows—was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell. I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses. Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say, or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 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.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.  2 Corinthians 12:1-10