The last few weeks at church, I have been exploring grace. Of course we have this one form of grace that most people understand. It’s the unmerited favor of God that allows us to be forgiven of our sins and receive eternal life.
But there’s another side to grace. It’s the grace that allows us to endure to get through things. It’s important that we understand this. We do very little in our own strength as a matter of fact you could go so far as to say our strength is an illusion. What we are really experiencing is the supernatural power of God allowing us to overcome.
In 2 Corinthians 11, we see Paul boasting about all the things that he has gotten through. To the average person, this can make us feel very weak. But if we look closely we will see that Paul says that when he boasts like this he is acting like a fool. In the following chapter we see Paul speak about his thorn. “A messenger of Satan that God gave Him to keep Him humble.” While Paul endured my things, the thorn brought him to His knees, begging God to take it away. God in effect said, “No.” Rather he said “My grace is sufficient for you and my strength is made perfect in weakness.” This is another form of grace. We don’t have to do everything in our own strength. We can instead lean on God and depend on Him, and when we do that we start to find God’s way through life.
Paul goes on to say that if he boasts he will boast about his weakness for when he is weak, then he is strong. Maybe we Christians need yo stop trying to show the world how strong we are and show them the One who carries us in our weakness.
Give may get us into Heaven, but the other side of grace allows us to survive this world.
When we are weak, He is strong and His grace pours over us.
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