Five Keys to Victory in Any Battle – #3 – Grace of God

I’ve been struggling to find the words for this blog on The Grace of God, not for a lack of subject matter, I just don’t know what to leave out! So for now, I’ll focus on three aspects of The Grace of God.

1) His Grace is desperately needed by everyone!

How much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. ~ Romans 5:17

Perhaps the most important lesson we can ever grasp is God blesses by grace ALONE. If you view yourself as “a pretty good person,” you might be good compared to other humans, but a perfectly holy God does not “grade on a curve!” He says, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3). Apart from His grace, we deserve nothing but punishment. On the other hand, grace is “unmerited favor” – getting something we do not deserve! The Greek word for grace, charis, is the word “gift.” Let’s cease trying to earn righteousness and simply take His free gift of righteousness! More on how here.

2) His Grace means He gives us a new heart, enabling us to finally follow Him!

Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from 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 be careful to observe My ordinances. ~ Ezekiel 36:26-27

There was a fundamental problem with “The Old Covenant,” the law-based system of earning righteousness. Hebrews 8:8-9 makes clear that God instituted a New Covenant because He “found fault with the people,” who failed miserably under the Old Covenant. To follow Him and be one of “His people,” we must have our very nature changed. He takes out our heart of stone and gives us a new heart in its place! This new heart is but a down payment on the amazing inheritance He gives us in Christ for living! This. is. Grace.

3) His Grace provides all we need when He allows hardship in our lives!

And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” ~ 2 Corinthians 12:9

Paul cried out to God three times to change the constant and painful crises in his life. Yet God allowed the troubles to continue, answering Paul that His grace would provide everything he needed to cope! In fact, we most often access God’s grace during hard times, like cancer battles and pandemics! I know I felt His grace in waves during my Stage IV battle with metastatic melanoma in 2002-2004. It’s easy to be disillusioned with God when things are so tough. Yet when we learn to embrace weakness, a whole new world of His grace opens up! We’ll lean more heavily upon Him to experience the amazing sufficiency of His grace! It’s still hard though, we know, and we at Stronghold Ministry are praying for you!

Lord, open our eyes to learn to simply walk in Your grace!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Join Joe & Terri Fornear on Joe’s Facebook page LIVE on Thursday night, May 14 for our monthly Stronghold Ministry Praise and Prayer Gathering and to discuss The Grace of God, our 3rd key to victory!