Waterfall of Grace
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness..” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 2 Corinthians 12: 9
The flesh can be a formidable foe to all the things you know in your heart to be true about yourself. It can cause doubt and anxiety. It opens doors to lies from the enemy. Like it or not our flesh is here to stay until the day we depart from this earth. We can hate the weaknesses of the flesh or we can acknowledge them as agents of a waterfall of grace.
When we “fail” in one area or another- maybe there is a pattern of the flesh you see often in your life- it is very easy to give into anxiety and self pity. “Oh, I’ll never change, I pray but nothing changes.” I don’t know about you, but I have said these very words many times through out my walk with Christ. Exasperated with Him, or myself, so utterly frustrated with my ability to seemingly fail. Once I go down that road mentally, it seems as though I began dropping all the balls in my life.
We all have issues. Things we feel comfortable to openly share and things we hide. I heard someone say once that our flesh hasn’t caught up with whats true about us.
What is true about a child of God? Is it true that our relationship with God is so unstable that my mishaps can cause a temporary seperation? Is it true that I must ask for forgiveness to be “right” with God again? Does my flesh patterns mean I am not a good Christian?
Or does it simply mean I am a child in need of grace everyday just as a child needs a mother’s kiss? What am I if I do not need my Savior? Strong? A spiritual giant? In His goodness our weakness only causes more of His power in our lives, to overflowing.
What is true about a child of God? You child, are an heir to the throne. Just as Christ is, so are you are. You are a new creation, with a new nature. No longer can we call weakness of the flesh our sin nature. It just doesn’t make sense. Our sin nature was nailed to the cross. When Christ rose and sat at the right hand of the Father, we rose as new creatures and sat with Him. We are one with the Father. How could we still be sinners and be one with the Father? Because we are a work in progress? In our mind only. In reality He has made us righteous and holy - sanctified. That is not a step program, there is no fleshly pursuit. He made us that, it was His good pleasure to. Yes, our flesh is weak, we still sin. We act out what is not true about us because we forget, or we believe lies. That does not change our new nature, that does not undo the finished work of the cross, that just means we are still in this fleshy tent. That means there is more opportunity for God’s power to overwhelm us.
The moment I think my worth has anything to do with my behavior, all of my faults become shockingly clear. I have a terrible time with social situations. My anxiety level goes sky high when I am in a room full of people, even if it’s people I know. I feel awkward and inadequete. My mind becomes very negative in these situations. I used to spend days reliving events. What did I say? Did I smile at so and so. Do you think they noticed I was nervous? Did they think I was rude?
I started going down this road tonight. We spent the day at a friends house celebrating Labor Day and a double surprise birthday party. There were a lot of friends there I had known for a long time and some acquaitances. The truth is I started getting anxious about this party days before the event. Not because I didn’t want to celebrate my friends birthday but because this is a definite area of weakness for me. I knew I would feel this way and maybe offend someone unintentionally. Honestly, I had a lot of awkward moments today.
As I sat in bed tonight I began to relive the evening like so many times before. Something tonight made me stop short. I found myself asking God what He thought about me. At this point I had two choices. I could give into the self pity party that would be very easy to wallow in, or be utterly overwhelmed by the waterfall of grace.
God spoke directly to my heart. He reminded me of who I am. I am loved, I am His. His, exactly the way I am. His grace is sufficient for me. This past weak I learned what sufficient means. So His timing was, as always, perfect. We think of “sufficient” as being just enough. In the Greek, sufficient used in this present tense is indicating God’s constant availability of grace. He holds back nothing. “ My grace is constantly available to you”. That’s whats so amazing about this newness in Christ. He holds back no good thing from His children. He isn’t giving because He can see Christ in us, as our protective covering. He is giving because He can see us. New clean children united with His Son. One day we will see ourselves as He sees us- shiny, clean, new, spotless. Until then, His grace is sufficient for me, and I gladly boast in it.
