Grace for Every Circumstance

“As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. For he says,
‘In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.’ I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.
We put no stumbling block in anyone's path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.”

God’s grace is abundant and purposeful. But it is not something that we see, touch, hear or otherwise detect with our senses. It is taken on faith. With the eyes of faith we see His grace everywhere. With the eyes of faith we feel His grace on our hearts and minds. With the eyes of grace we get a glimmer of the heart and eyes of Christ for the world.

Grace is something we take almost for granted without faith. It is coincidence or luck or chance or feelings or some other poorly attributed cause. But God’s grace was poured out through the life of Jesus Christ, through his death on the cross and through his resurrection which fulfilled the worthy atonement for our sins. The worthy lamb of God was all about grace.

With God’s grace in our lives we are able to go through all things. Paul says “I can do all things through him who gives me strength.” What he means is that God’s “grace is sufficient.” Paul describes how grace has brought him through all kinds of situations by delineating those circumstances in 2 Corinthians 6:4-10.

The grace of God is required to live the godly life. We cannot presume to have anything in us, other than Christ, that can prevail against the darkness, shine the light of Christ, be Christ with flesh on, other than the grace of God. This concept, this action, this verb, requires total surrender to Christ who lives in us, so that we can reflect that we are different to a world that is indifferent.