(C) Cheryl Howard 2008
“And HE said to me, ‘MY favor, MY gifts, benefits and joy, MY liberality, MY pleasure, and MY grace are sufficient for you; they are enough, be content for they are satisfactory to avail you, they will defend you and ward off harm and make you strong. For MY miraculous power, MY virtue, might, force and strength, MY abundant ability fills up and completes your lack of strength, it makes perfect and is made perfect in your weakness, it consecrates and sets you apart and it fulfils your frailty, finishes your infirmity and feebleness. It is MY strength and power that accomplishes this! What you lack I have and I give to you all you need when you depend upon ME, when you realize I am enough for you – ALL that you need!’
Therefore, because of this truth, most gladly, most delightedly, with great relish and great pleasure will I rejoice in, vaunt, make a boast of and glory in my weakness and frailty, my feebleness and infirmity – in my own lack of strength; so that the miraculous power and might of CHRIST - HIS abundance, ability, virtue and strength may rest upon me, abide with me and spread a ‘tent’, a ‘tabernacle’ over me, covering me, over my life!”
thought for the journey ….
2 Corinthians 12:10 goes on to tell us that not only does Paul ’boast’ in his weakness, but he has learnt to take pleasure in distresses, infirmities, reproaches, persecutions & needs because he has learnt the truth - that when he is weak then he is strong in CHRIST’s strength & enabling!
How desperately we need to learn to focus on our SAVIOR’s strength and wholeness and not on our brokenness and weakness! There are two truths here that we need to have seared on our innermost being: 1/ We are weak, frail & feeble …
BUT ….. 2/ HE is miraculously strong & powerful …..!
HE fills up our lack - if we let our lack show us our utter helplessness, our total need of HIM - if this lack is the impetus that drives us to HIS embrace, to throwing ourselves completely upon HIS grace; knowing that HE alone is all we will ever need! Yield to HIM, put our trust & hope in Him, depend upon HIM and let HIM flood us with HIS ‘in powering’. The more we lack, the more place for HIM to fill with HIS sufficiency!
It is all about JESUS - keep our hearts & minds steadfastly set upon HIM, rest in HIS strength. HIS grace & favor are all we need. It is HE who enables us, by HIS HOLY SPIRIT, to overcome,to be victorious! Faith - the heart that trust in GOD, in HIS sufficiency.
Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through CHRIST who strengthens me.”
Romans 8:26a “Likewise The SPIRIT also helps us in our weaknesses.”
Romans 8:37 “yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through HIM who loved us!”
(C) Cheryl Howard 2008
I blundered lost, alone,
In search of my hearts home.
YOU reached out tender hand,
Said in YOU, You’d make me stand.
I was limping through life’s wasteland,
Full of self, its ceaseless demands.
Then I felt YOUR touch of Grace,
YOU swept me up from this dead place.
Mesmerized I glimpsed, YOUR unending love,
One glance and I was changed, by GOD who rules above.
I heard YOUR voice within my soul,
That in YOUR SON, YOU’d make me whole.
The choice YOU said was mine to make,
YOU offered YOUR heart for me to take.
In that moment eternity stood still,
As I cried out yes and surrendered my will.
O the power of YOUR unearned Grace ,
That lifts me up before YOUR Face,
O the wonder of my sins erased,
When I came to The Cross and knelt in faith.
On my heart YOU’ve inscribed YOUR law of Love and Life,
Tis YOUR Redemption and YOUR Grace that in my heart resides.
The power of my SAVIOR that transforms from the inside,
As I cease my fleshly striving and in CHRIST’s Perfection Alone abide.
For many years I’ve followed, led through this life by YOU,
And never ceased to marvel at YOUR love so strong and true.
The way tis often hard, the struggles are not few,
But what eternal praises do they store up for YOU!
thought for the journey …
We have an almost universal misunderstanding of Law and Grace. How often we have treated GOD’s law with contempt - as if it’s ‘bad’ and needed to be done away with. Yet GOD HIMSELF declares in Psalm 19:7-11 “The law of The LORD is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of The LORD is sure, making wise the simple; the statutes of The LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of The LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of The LORD is clean, enduring forever; the judgments of The LORD are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them YOUR servant is warned, and in keeping them there is great reward.”
The law was never the problem - our inability to keep it, to live fathfully by it, is! Romans 7:12 “Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.”
Matthew 5:17-22 “Do not think I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets, I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commands, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does, and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven ….”
JESUS never came to get rid of the law, but to fulfill it - for us. The truth is HE calls us to a higher standard under grace - a higher ‘law’ if you like - a ‘Law of Love’, inscribed upon our very heart and soul. We are no longer under law, for the law could never effect change in our hearts, we are now under grace - grace that causes us to desire and to be able to fulfill HIS moral law of love! HE by HIS grace has removed our hard, stony hearts, made us “the righteousness of GOD in CHRIST” (2 Corinthians 5:21) and replaced our lifeless hearts with soft hearts on which HE has inscribed HIS perfect law - this is the work of the Cross, we are born again! Ezekiel 36:26-27 “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put MY SPIRIT within you and cause you to walk in MY statutes, and you will keep MY judgments and do them.”
In the Old Testament we were told not to murder, not to lie, not to covet, steal, commit adultery ….. in the New we are told to be angry with our brother without cause is as bad as murder and to call him a fool puts us in hell’s fires, that all liars will have their part in the lake of fire, to look with lust is tantamount to adultery …. we are called to live by “The law of The SPIRIT of Life in CHRIST JESUS” - we are to walk not in the flesh but in The SPIRIT, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us (Romans 8:1-8). When we read the gospels and the epistles we see GOD’s moral law not only upheld, but demanded of us - that is why HIS grace is totally essential in our lives. We can’t live without it!
Matthew 22:37-40 tells us that all the Law and the Prophets hang on two commandments: To love our LORD GOD with our all and to love our neighbor as ourselves. If we truly lived this way then we would fulfill GOD’s holy law - yet JESUS demands even more of us, for us to love as HE does. HE lifted the bar, made it even more impossible for us to reach - IN OUR OWN EFFORTS! This is beyond our reach - and that is the point! That is the heart of grace - it is only by the enabling, the empowering of ALMIGHTY GOD by HIS indwelling HOLY SPIRIT that we can live by JESUS’ ‘new commandment’ in John 13:34 & 15:12 “…that you love one another as I have loved you.” We need the Love of GOD HIMSELF, poured out in our hearts by indwelling HOLY SPIRIT - HE changes us from the inside out (Romans 5:5). To live by grace is to abide in CHRIST - the VINE, The WORD, The TRUTH, The WAY, The LIFE … IN HIM! HE floods us with HIS love so that we can not only love one another as ourselves, but love as HE loves us!
Only law can show us how unattainable the standard is, how far we fall short of it, and how we cannot possibly reach it in our own efforts. The law is good - for it leads us to the foot of The Cross, revealing our appalling poverty, our need of grace. We need rescuing - we need a SAVIOR!
JESUS came to free us to live holy lives, to live free from the death sentence the law imposes on us for our failure to keep it - free to live forgiven, cleansed and born again by the precious Blood of our SAVIOR GOD. Free to live by the higher demands of the ‘law’ of love and grace - through the power, love and enabling of indwelling HOLY SPIRIT.
We have been bought with a price, we are not our own and that is why we must glorify GOD in our bodies (1 Corinthians 6:20) - we overcome by the Blood of The LAMB of GOD who takes away the sins of the world (Revelation 9:11).
Grace demands the impossible of us, to live beyond ourselves, to live in the realm of utter dependancy upon GOD, in true humility - grace is not an option, it is our necessity, if we don’t live by grace we will die by the law!
