Working By Grace
Most of you reading this book Call of God must be hoping to learn more about how you can walk in the call that God may have upon your life. That is a good thing you are pursuing, and we encourage you to always have that fervour in you.
The drawing towards what God has prepared for you to do is not the first time you are experiencing the call of God if you are a born-again child of God. Whatever call of God you are trying to respond to now is there only because you have responded to an earlier call – the call to salvation. How can anyone accept Jesus as Savior unless he has first received a call for that? Being saved is something divine which even the best of human efforts will never be able to achieve. God calls every person to repentance and gives salvation to all who respond to that call (Acts 2:39). That is His grace to us. It was dependence on a higher power (God) that saved us. Had God waited for us to save ourselves, we would never get anywhere near that. He had to extend His grace to us, that we might lay hold of that and fulfil His primary will for us to be saved.
From there, God does not expect us to abandon that dependence on Him, for since we started out by grace it is desirable that we continue the rest of the journey by grace too. There are two popular definitions that we find best describe grace. When we talk about receiving God’s higher power that makes us eligible for something we don’t deserve on our own merits, grace could be defined as the unmerited favour of God upon our lives. It is as if God ignores all the ugliness in us and gives us a gift that, even with all the good in us added together, we will never deserve. That is the kind of grace we received from Him when we took the gift of salvation, what is commonly referred to as the ‘saving grace’ of God. When we talk about receiving His power to do something which all our best efforts combined will not be able to achieve, grace could be described as the power beyond our own ability to do the work that God has prepared in advance for us (Eph. 2:10). This is also what we know as divine enablement.
It is not intended for us to accept as one isolated dose the grace of God upon our conversion and with that make it through the rest of the journey by whatever we can get together. Rather, God intends for us to continue walking in His divine enablement and favour daily. When we learn to take God’s grace as our strength, we become like the vessel with its sail positioned to catch the current of the wind. With the orientation of our mast in its proper place, we will have the fullest aid of the wind to navigate the waters. But the person who relies solely on his human effort and does not use God’s grace is like one paddling furiously with his oars to move his rowboat in the water.
Understanding Grace
Let us consider a few scriptures so as to understand how the grace of God works in our life:
“A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven.” (John 3:27)
“But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly as this? For all things come from you, and of Your own we have given You” (1 Chron. 29:14).
“Lord, You will establish peace for us, for You have also done all our works in us” (Isa. 26:12)
“For in Him we live and move and have our being…” (Acts 17:28)
If you understood the scriptures above, you would realise that the common message is this: all that we have is from God, and there is nothing we own or have that is not given by Him. All that we have – from the greatest power in us that worked outstanding miracles to our very last breath - are from God. We know this is going to make us sound very poor, perhaps even insignificant, but the truth is there is absolutely nothing that we have that does not originally belong to God. Even the most basic and perhaps also the most precious thing you have – your life – is given by God.
If you can do great works, that is because He gives you the strength and power for them. If He sees that it’s better to get someone else to do it and decides that you should take a break and look at something else, who can stop Him? God is supreme in this area and He decides the measure of grace to give to each one. Unless you understand this and accept it, you will find it a constant struggle to operate by God’s grace. You will want to do more even when the grace given you is for a smaller task, and you will fear to scale high even when God has given all the grace you need to reach the highest heights. Learning to rest in God’s grace is important. It will give you peace and make you delight in serving God as His child.
One of the reasons why we are often unwilling to part with what we have is because we have not understood how freely we have received from the Lord. But Jesus says, “As you have freely received, freely give” (Matt. 10:9). We cleave to what we have, mistaking that all we possess came about through our hard work and achievements, rather than from the Lord Himself. This is a kind of short-sightedness that many people suffer from. When we are unable to see that all we have came from God, we will tend to feel that we have given sacrificially to His people, and may even feel a sense of nobility in our giving. But get that understanding of our total dependence on God’s provision and we will find it so much easier to dispense His provisions to His people.
Grace to stand in the five-fold ministry
Paul and Peter were both called to be apostles in the early church; one a learned man well-versed in scripture while the other a humble fisherman. Poles apart in terms of personal abilities, but most people would think that with all the schooling and training he’d received, Paul was probably a more capable man than Peter to minister to the highly educated Jews, in particular the religious group made up of Pharisees and Sadducees. But God had a different idea. Paul was made an apostle to the Gentiles while Peter was sent to the Jews. Two unlikely appointments there, but who is to say God made a mistake, when their ministry with their respective races have passed the test of trials and carried on up to this day!
Very clearly, God has demonstrated that His grace is poured out in no regard to the natural capabilities of the two men. Though Paul was obviously more qualified for the job than Peter by human reasoning, God apparently thought otherwise. This is because it is the Holy Spirit who equips and enables man for every work unto God. Man is to rely chiefly on the Holy Spirit and not look obsessively to their strengths and weaknesses. There is therefore nothing that He cannot do as long as one is willing to yield. When God calls, He does not go through your personal inventory and see what you can do for Him; but He looks at what the Holy Spirit can do for Him through you. With God’s infinity, there is absolutely nothing to stop the biggest plans in heaven from taking place through your co-operation with the Holy Spirit. The only thing He needs you to do is to receive that gift of grace and work by it.
Grace To Minister In the Gifts
“Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them…” (Rom 12:6)
“But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” (Eph. 4:7)
“As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” (1 Pet.4:10)
God has given every man a gift of grace, you included. There is no one who has been left out of the list of recipients of God’s grace. From the seeming greatest to the seeming least of us, there is a gift of grace deposited in us by God. It is designed for us to use it to do whatever He has called us to do.
Now that we know it is the Holy Spirit who works in God’s people to achieve mighty works, let us not think arrogantly of the gifts that we put into action each time we minister to God’s children. Gifts from the Lord can often become a source of private boasting in our hearts if we fail to remind ourselves constantly that they have been given freely by the Lord to us. He gives us the grace to operate effectively in our gifts for the good of the Body of Christ. To be proud of them is to be blindly mistaken that we own them when we don’t.
Grace In the Secular
“And Adah bore Jabal. He was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal. He was the father of all those who play the harp and flute. And as for Zillah, she also bore Tubal-Cain, an instructor of every craftsman in bronze and iron.” (Gen 4:20-22)
In the Old Testament, every tribe called of God was gifted in a particular area, whether in craftsmanship, music, handicraft, etc. While it is important to learn to trust in God and rely on His grace to do the work that He has called us to do, we also need the basic capacity to make a living for ourselves while on this earth. God is not unreasonable. He doesn’t give you spiritual gifts but leave you to figure out how you are going to make a living with them in the world (of course you can’t). While taking care of your natural needs, God also gives you skills and talents to do the various tasks pertaining to Christian ministry. So, if you happen to be a successful professional in the career field today, do not forget that whatever you have there is from God, who made it all possible.
“But by the grace of God I am what I am.” (1 Cor.15:10)
Grace As A Substance
While we know that grace is an attribute of God, it is also very much a substance that is tangible to varying degrees in the lives of believers. Firstly, we know that the grace upon our lives is something which can be observed by others. When Barnabas arrived in Antioch, the Book of Acts describes that he saw the grace of God among the people there (Acts 11:23). In another example, we read that “when James, Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me (Paul), they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised” (Gal 2:9). Here, we learn that not only did James, Cephas and John perceive that grace was with Paul, they perceived too the area of grace which had been given to Paul, which was to minister to the Gentiles. In the Body of Christ, it is similarly important to recognise the area of grace each member has been gifted in so that he can be positioned where God has equipped him to serve. One may seem to consistently achieve amazing results with juvenile delinquents while another may be granted exceptional grace to minister to women with family problems and so on. It is vitally important that we who witness the grace of God upon the lives of these members in the various areas of service help to lead them to where God has called them.
Just as the presence of grace can be seen, it can also be developed and given in varying measures to believers. Peter exhorts the church to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18), and Paul writes to the Corinthian church encouraging them that “God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you; always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work” (2 Cor 9:8). The grace of God deposited in you is a place where you can safely grow until you develop the fullest potential for the work that God has prepared for you to do.
The Bible also speaks of the possibility of receiving ‘great’ and ‘manifold’ grace (Acts 4:33, 1 Pet 4:10), as well as of ‘nullifying,’ ‘falling short’ of, or ‘falling from’ grace (Gal 2:21; 5:4; Heb 12:15). It must be noted in the term `falling from grace’ that this was in the context where Paul was warning the Galatian church from returning to the law by serving God through their own efforts and he was not making a reference to their having sinned. To fall from grace is essentially to deny the grace that God freely gives, preferring to serve Him out of self-effort and labour instead of leaning on the provision given by Him. One of the major work of satan is to deceive the saints of God to fall from Grace and fall back on their effort to please God (law). We should always be diligent to lean hard on the grace of God.
Our Response To His Grace
Having understood what the grace of God means, let us proceed further to consider the response the Lord desires from us in regard to this.
It is not enough to simply acknowledge the presence of grace in our lives. As Hebrews 13:9 says, “…it is good that the heart be established by grace….” To be established by grace is to live a life in which grace operates in us as a lifestyle of dependence on God rather than only as a mere knowledge of its availability. If we acknowledge the little we can accomplish apart from the Lord, how crucial it would then be to look always to Him alone to perfect us, and to enable us to live a life that is pleasing to Him. `Unless the Lord builds the house, they labour in vain who build it” (Psalm 127:1). May we see then that even our efforts to establish ourselves in grace would prove futile since it is God alone who works in us and not we ourselves. Therefore, we see that how established we are in grace is really a measure of how dependent we are on the Lord.
Grace For Strength
In walking towards the call of God, the road is not always smooth. Sometimes there is an obstacle here and, at other times, a rock there. Whatever it is, when difficulty arises, do not despair, but remember the grace of God. It is there not only to give you additional power to do the work, but also to give you all the comfort and power you need when you have none to hold you up.
One of the measures of Christian maturity is the persistence to continually look to the Lord for divine empowerment and strength. When things collapse around us, would we return once again to His arms to receive new strength or would we lie fallen, crushed, and in despair? Two traits stand out in the life of David testifying of him as a “man after God’s own heart”. First, he sought the Lord in all he did, and second, he learnt how, under the most trying of circumstances, to always “strengthen himself in the Lord.”
We are not saying that you shouldn’t find help for yourself in times of trouble. Sometimes, even after several tries, you will not find much relief. Then, you will need to learn how to let God’s grace be the therapy. In times of need, God has promised grace sufficient to strengthen and to restore. Do not try to judge if this is enough for you (people usually end up making poor judgments in a spirit of anxiety anyway). If you trust in God, trust also in His judgment of what He thinks is good enough for you. God is good – He will not withhold from you.
If He chooses not to remove the source of pain, just as in the case of Paul (2 Cor. 12:7), He will make sufficient grace available to you to live a victorious life anyhow. Our hope must come to rest not on the alteration of circumstances around us (because sometimes they will not come), but on God, our loving Father. Perhaps some of us, though Christians for many years, have never been healed from the hurts and emotional wounds inflicted upon us by either unkind words or deeds by the people around. These hurts, if not resolved, will eventually eat into our lives like a malignant cancer, crippling our spiritual growth and causing hurt to those around us.
Healthy emotional growth must take place in order for these diseases to go, and it is entirely a “let go and let God” approach to take. Some sincere believers adopt a passive attitude towards their emotional hurts and do not recover from them until something happens to force them into therapy. God’s grace truly is sufficient to bind every gaping and tender wound in our hearts, and it can operate deep enough to restore any brokenness to wholeness. However, He requires our co-operation. While His grace will always be there for us, we must use it so that, with God, we can turn ashes to beauty.
Before we go further, let us state again that grace is the unmerited favour of God bestowed upon us to put us in a position of divine favour to receive all of the blessings and power (divine enablement) we need to be the instrument that He has called us to be.
Now, let us see how we can all use the grace of God to do the great and mighty things that He has called us to.
Appropriating the Grace Of God
Just as we have told you to depend on God for His grace for many things in your life, we also need to tell you that God depends on you to possess and use what He has given to you. You will need to press on to what you have in God, and let that do what needs to be done in you.
There are 2 keys to ensuring that we fully appropriate the grace of God given to us: the first of these is prayer; the second is a humble heart that allows God to use different channels of resources to heal, equip, and develop us.
Prayer
Is it not true that inasmuch as we know we are accepted before God, many are the times when, because of our sinful actions or thoughts, we allow our hearts to condemn us, causing us to doubt God’s continued grace upon our lives? Nevertheless, we are instructed that though this may indeed be the case, “God is greater than our hearts and knows all things.” (1 John 3:20-21) In other words, even in times when we are most undeserving , rather than withhold His grace from us, He continues to supply His favour as long as we continue to seek Him in prayer, believing that He is able to deliver us.
Whether we can proceed with the call of God upon our lives depends on whether we have any offence outstanding on our conscience. Confession to God will remove the offence, but as long as we accepts the accusation of satan, our conscience is stuck with it. We cannot effectively serve God until our conscience is at rest once again.
When we commit sin we dishonour God, but when thereafter we fail to put our trust in the blood of Christ for our sins, we dishonour Him even more. “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need”(Heb.4:15). God’s mercy is new every morning and He never rejects a truly repentant heart.
Humility
Humility, though existing in the understanding of many people as a virtue, is essentially a decision from the heart. Though Jesus was God, He “humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” (Phil 2:8). That humility which the Lord had was what drew grace into Him to help Him bear the pain of the cross.
“Be clothed with humility, for God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” (1 Pet.5:5-6)
There is a concept of sufficiency that is causing harm to some workers of God’s ministry. This notion is especially common among matured Christians. It presupposes that with God around, we won’t need anyone else. This posture is usually based on the doctrine that preaches the sufficiency of Christ. There is absolutely nothing incorrect in believing that Christ is sufficient for us. The problem arises when we interpret it to mean that help and power can only come directly from Him alone, His resources excluded. This is a very incorrect perception, and it is apparent the person who holds to such a belief has forgotten that “Christ is all and in all” (Col. 3:11). Our neighbour is still a part of Christ; the donkey that spoke to Balaam was also a part of Christ since it was a part of the creation made for Christ. Christ encompasses all things in heaven and on earth. Therefore when we talk about sufficiency in Christ, we are really looking at sufficiency in everything that God can bring to us out of His resources from every place.
It is possible that grace may even flow from a non-Christian resource. Remember the parable of the man who was attacked and robbed? It wasn’t the priest who walked by or the passing Levite who helped him. It was a Samaritan who stopped to minister help to him (Lk. 10:30-36).
God certainly can do all things, but that doesn’t oblige Him to be the sole satisfier of our needs all the time. He surely doesn’t cook the meals for the children’s ministry we are heading, nor does He stand by and flips the pages of the Bible for us while we preach. God uses all sorts of resources to help us in doing the work that He has called us to.
Yes, we depend on God’s grace, but remember that His grace can come through many different channels, and people are truly a means of distributing God’s grace: “Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them.” (Rom. 12:6)
If we are not receiving grace from God’s people, our perception of God is unnecessarily limited. We may even be alienating ourself from potential sources of assistance. Do not deny ourself needlessly. Needing each other’s gifts, love and counsel is the biblical pattern for growth and progress (2 Cor. 12:21).
At certain times, God may send particular people into our lives to equip and contribute significantly to what we are doing for God. These people are our mentors. They are living examples providing guidance, wisdom and support when we need.
They remain with us for either a protracted period of time or for a season to impart something God has placed upon their lives into ours. Mentors often play the role of pacesetters, so to speak, to encourage us to press on in our relationship with the Lord and to accelerate our speed of learning the things of God. They may be role models for us to follow in the various godly qualities or values they espouse or they may be excellent teachers in subject matters which the Lord has willed for us to be taught. These mentors often ensure we stay on the right track by keeping us accountable to them of our actions and our spiritual discipline.
Some of you may be a mentor to someone today, or you may be having someone mentoring over you. Either way, we have a word of caution for you.
To those called to be mentors, be very aware in this issue of accountability that you do not abuse the authority you have been given as an avenue to control those the Lord has placed under your charge. Rather, lead them as the Lord Himself would. Love them, and support their labour for God.
“Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by constraint but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly; nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock; and when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away.” (1 Pet.5:2-4)
For you who are eager to have mentors who can help you grow more speedily in the Lord, be patient and let God introduce the right people to you while you keep contact with the general fellowship of believers. As seen in the example of Elijah and Elisha, where Elijah was instructed beforehand on whom to mentor, it is the will of the Lord and not the zeal of man that raises spiritual mentors. Just as the Lord provides faithfully for his creation, He certainly knows how to satisfy our spiritual thirst for Him by sending the right people at the right time to watch over us and to help us along in our walk with Him. Of course, you may ask God to bring spiritual mentors into your life, but at the same time, remember that He loves you and knows your needs. Entrust the timing and choice of spiritual mentors into His safe hands.
There is indeed a value in people ministry. God’s Word is great, and His presence is sublime. But even so, He created people so that through all of us He can manifest more of Himself and His love for each one.
John, the beloved disciple and apostle of Jesus, supported this idea: “Having many things to write to you, I did not wish to do so with paper and ink; but I hope to come to you and speak face to face, that our joy may be full” (2 John 12).
Books
Another way in which God’s grace flows into our lives is through Christian literature. While not all who write have been called by the Lord to write, those who indeed have been instructed to do so undoubtedly carry a special anointing to impart spiritual truths to their readers. In Acts 19, we read that items as insignificant as handkerchiefs and aprons were used as instruments of great healing and deliverance. This was because the anointing of the Lord upon Paul flowed from him to touch the diseases of the multitudes. In the same way, God can use the anointed writings of His servants to impart spiritual blessing to His children.
Christian literature on theology such as exposition on the books of the Bible, character studies and topical studies show us Biblical principles in their proper context and help prevent us from being easily led astray. There is also Christian literature detailing significant movements in the work of the Holy Spirit through the ages and autobiographies of men and women of God who lived before us that reveal both the principles of their successes and failures. These works give us insight into the way the Holy Spirit operates, and help to prevent us from repeating the mistakes previously committed.
There are also books which deal with subjects pertaining specifically to our calling which help equip us to function better in our call. Appreciated seriously, Christian writings work hand-in-hand with the Lord in the area of grace given to us to help us fulfil God’s calling.
Then there are books on how to manage relationships in the family or in the body of Christ . And finally there are devotionals, which help us to walk closer to God, giving us meat to meditate on, helping us make better sense of the ways of God.
Read a variety of Christian literature and resources. They lend dimensions to our understanding of things and will prosper and mature us as a person.
Personal Desire vs. God’s Grace
The life and ministry of Paul sheds light on the difference between working out of a personal desire and flowing in the area of God’s grace. We know that Paul was an apostle called to minister specifically to the Gentiles. Yet, although Paul was well aware of this call upon His life, there were times when, out of his personal zeal and desire to see His own brethren in Israel saved, he spent time preaching to the Jews instead. We see instances of this in Damascus (Acts 9:20-25), Jerusalem (Acts 9:26-30), Antioch (Acts 11:25, 13:42-51), Lystra (Acts 14:19-20; 27), Thessalonica and Berea (Acts 17:1-5; 10-14), and Corinth (Acts 18:4-6). On each of these occasions, we notice that Paul faced immense persecution from the Jews—to the extent that he was finally persuaded to “shake the dust off his feet” (Acts 13:51, Acts 18:6) and turn to the Gentiles instead (Acts 13:47). The persecution that Paul faced appeared therefore to have been a direct consequence of his ministry to the Jews, which stemmed from his personal desire and love for them rather than an instruction from the Lord. We observe, too, how on these occasions, where Gentiles were present in the assembly together with the Jews, that it was these Gentiles who inadvertently received the gospel message with joy (Acts 13:48), demonstrating again the grace of God given to Paul towards the Gentiles.
There is a difference between preaching a biblical theme and citing a biblical example. Teachings are directives and instructions from God’s Word which we must follow but examples are not. Examples show us in general how we can seek God on our own situation and then decide on the course of action. We would not commit as doctrines what are given as examples. But if you feel that God is telling you something specific from Paul’s example, we urge you to consider His promptings carefully. It helps to stay faithful in the area of grace the Lord has given to us and to “remain in the same calling in which (we were) called” (1 Cor. 7:20). Spending our strength on what the Lord has not called us to, we can easily see, will leave little or even nothing in us for what He has entrusted to us.
Sanctified Lives
“In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honour and some for dishonour. Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honour, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work.” (2 Tim 2:20-21)
The lesson we are trying to learn in this chapter is working by grace. There is a work that God has prepared in advance for us to do but this job is too big for our own human effort. We need the grace of God in order to do a good job. Trying to do it on our own will only makes us self-reliant workers who labour in vain in our own strength. But even before we start obeying our calling, we are required by God to be vessels that are continually in the process of becoming holy and sanctified. Here we now come to the ultimate responsibility that we must take for ourselves.
We are to become God’s partner in the process of sanctification that makes us holy. The key to sanctifying ourselves lies essentially in a willing heart. The work of sanctification is not a unilateral effort from us to try to achieve results, for we are told that “it is God who works in us to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Phil 2:13-14) even though it is true that “we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works” (Eph. 2:10). In effect, what this means is that we are partners with God in whatever good work that needs to be done in us and through us.
John says that “Loving God means doing what He tells us to do, and really, that isn’t hard at all; for every child of God can obey Him, defeating sin and evil pleasure by trusting Christ to help him” (1 John 5:3-4). In order to break free from sinful habits, trust in God’s power to do that, walk towards the light, fix your eyes upon Jesus and receive His grace to overcome.
When we come before God in an encounter with His Spirit, we will be silenced by His holiness. Sooner or later, this encounter will force a comparison between the desperate state of our self and the glorious one of His. However, His grace will give the allowance and make it possible for us to sanctify ourselves as He desires for us.
“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.” (James 4:8-10)
God’s grace is the principal ingredient in our sanctification process, but we have our distinct roles to play too. We are stewards of our salvation and sanctification – that will never change. The grace of God cannot be treated as our slave either. We need to make the necessary effort to appropriate God’s grace into our lives and our work so that it can work for us. While we rejoice in having God’s grace, we would in fact be dishonouring it by our slackness if we do not lay hold of it and use it in a rightful manner.
“By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly…yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” (1 Cor.15:10)
While sanctification is not a process sustained by self-effort, it requires one’s serious involvement]. You can’t absolve yourself from that responsibility. So, work hard with God on that, using all that He has given you—His grace in particular.
The drawing towards what God has prepared for you to do is not the first time you are experiencing the call of God if you are a born-again child of God. Whatever call of God you are trying to respond to now is there only because you have responded to an earlier call – the call to salvation. How can anyone accept Jesus as Savior unless he has first received a call for that? Being saved is something divine which even the best of human efforts will never be able to achieve. God calls every person to repentance and gives salvation to all who respond to that call (Acts 2:39). That is His grace to us. It was dependence on a higher power (God) that saved us. Had God waited for us to save ourselves, we would never get anywhere near that. He had to extend His grace to us, that we might lay hold of that and fulfil His primary will for us to be saved.
From there, God does not expect us to abandon that dependence on Him, for since we started out by grace it is desirable that we continue the rest of the journey by grace too. There are two popular definitions that we find best describe grace. When we talk about receiving God’s higher power that makes us eligible for something we don’t deserve on our own merits, grace could be defined as the unmerited favour of God upon our lives. It is as if God ignores all the ugliness in us and gives us a gift that, even with all the good in us added together, we will never deserve. That is the kind of grace we received from Him when we took the gift of salvation, what is commonly referred to as the ‘saving grace’ of God. When we talk about receiving His power to do something which all our best efforts combined will not be able to achieve, grace could be described as the power beyond our own ability to do the work that God has prepared in advance for us (Eph. 2:10). This is also what we know as divine enablement.
It is not intended for us to accept as one isolated dose the grace of God upon our conversion and with that make it through the rest of the journey by whatever we can get together. Rather, God intends for us to continue walking in His divine enablement and favour daily. When we learn to take God’s grace as our strength, we become like the vessel with its sail positioned to catch the current of the wind. With the orientation of our mast in its proper place, we will have the fullest aid of the wind to navigate the waters. But the person who relies solely on his human effort and does not use God’s grace is like one paddling furiously with his oars to move his rowboat in the water.
Understanding Grace
Let us consider a few scriptures so as to understand how the grace of God works in our life:
“A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven.” (John 3:27)
“But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly as this? For all things come from you, and of Your own we have given You” (1 Chron. 29:14).
“Lord, You will establish peace for us, for You have also done all our works in us” (Isa. 26:12)
“For in Him we live and move and have our being…” (Acts 17:28)
If you understood the scriptures above, you would realise that the common message is this: all that we have is from God, and there is nothing we own or have that is not given by Him. All that we have – from the greatest power in us that worked outstanding miracles to our very last breath - are from God. We know this is going to make us sound very poor, perhaps even insignificant, but the truth is there is absolutely nothing that we have that does not originally belong to God. Even the most basic and perhaps also the most precious thing you have – your life – is given by God.
If you can do great works, that is because He gives you the strength and power for them. If He sees that it’s better to get someone else to do it and decides that you should take a break and look at something else, who can stop Him? God is supreme in this area and He decides the measure of grace to give to each one. Unless you understand this and accept it, you will find it a constant struggle to operate by God’s grace. You will want to do more even when the grace given you is for a smaller task, and you will fear to scale high even when God has given all the grace you need to reach the highest heights. Learning to rest in God’s grace is important. It will give you peace and make you delight in serving God as His child.
One of the reasons why we are often unwilling to part with what we have is because we have not understood how freely we have received from the Lord. But Jesus says, “As you have freely received, freely give” (Matt. 10:9). We cleave to what we have, mistaking that all we possess came about through our hard work and achievements, rather than from the Lord Himself. This is a kind of short-sightedness that many people suffer from. When we are unable to see that all we have came from God, we will tend to feel that we have given sacrificially to His people, and may even feel a sense of nobility in our giving. But get that understanding of our total dependence on God’s provision and we will find it so much easier to dispense His provisions to His people.
Grace to stand in the five-fold ministry
Paul and Peter were both called to be apostles in the early church; one a learned man well-versed in scripture while the other a humble fisherman. Poles apart in terms of personal abilities, but most people would think that with all the schooling and training he’d received, Paul was probably a more capable man than Peter to minister to the highly educated Jews, in particular the religious group made up of Pharisees and Sadducees. But God had a different idea. Paul was made an apostle to the Gentiles while Peter was sent to the Jews. Two unlikely appointments there, but who is to say God made a mistake, when their ministry with their respective races have passed the test of trials and carried on up to this day!
Very clearly, God has demonstrated that His grace is poured out in no regard to the natural capabilities of the two men. Though Paul was obviously more qualified for the job than Peter by human reasoning, God apparently thought otherwise. This is because it is the Holy Spirit who equips and enables man for every work unto God. Man is to rely chiefly on the Holy Spirit and not look obsessively to their strengths and weaknesses. There is therefore nothing that He cannot do as long as one is willing to yield. When God calls, He does not go through your personal inventory and see what you can do for Him; but He looks at what the Holy Spirit can do for Him through you. With God’s infinity, there is absolutely nothing to stop the biggest plans in heaven from taking place through your co-operation with the Holy Spirit. The only thing He needs you to do is to receive that gift of grace and work by it.
Grace To Minister In the Gifts
“Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them…” (Rom 12:6)
“But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” (Eph. 4:7)
“As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” (1 Pet.4:10)
God has given every man a gift of grace, you included. There is no one who has been left out of the list of recipients of God’s grace. From the seeming greatest to the seeming least of us, there is a gift of grace deposited in us by God. It is designed for us to use it to do whatever He has called us to do.
Now that we know it is the Holy Spirit who works in God’s people to achieve mighty works, let us not think arrogantly of the gifts that we put into action each time we minister to God’s children. Gifts from the Lord can often become a source of private boasting in our hearts if we fail to remind ourselves constantly that they have been given freely by the Lord to us. He gives us the grace to operate effectively in our gifts for the good of the Body of Christ. To be proud of them is to be blindly mistaken that we own them when we don’t.
Grace In the Secular
“And Adah bore Jabal. He was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal. He was the father of all those who play the harp and flute. And as for Zillah, she also bore Tubal-Cain, an instructor of every craftsman in bronze and iron.” (Gen 4:20-22)
In the Old Testament, every tribe called of God was gifted in a particular area, whether in craftsmanship, music, handicraft, etc. While it is important to learn to trust in God and rely on His grace to do the work that He has called us to do, we also need the basic capacity to make a living for ourselves while on this earth. God is not unreasonable. He doesn’t give you spiritual gifts but leave you to figure out how you are going to make a living with them in the world (of course you can’t). While taking care of your natural needs, God also gives you skills and talents to do the various tasks pertaining to Christian ministry. So, if you happen to be a successful professional in the career field today, do not forget that whatever you have there is from God, who made it all possible.
“But by the grace of God I am what I am.” (1 Cor.15:10)
Grace As A Substance
While we know that grace is an attribute of God, it is also very much a substance that is tangible to varying degrees in the lives of believers. Firstly, we know that the grace upon our lives is something which can be observed by others. When Barnabas arrived in Antioch, the Book of Acts describes that he saw the grace of God among the people there (Acts 11:23). In another example, we read that “when James, Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me (Paul), they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised” (Gal 2:9). Here, we learn that not only did James, Cephas and John perceive that grace was with Paul, they perceived too the area of grace which had been given to Paul, which was to minister to the Gentiles. In the Body of Christ, it is similarly important to recognise the area of grace each member has been gifted in so that he can be positioned where God has equipped him to serve. One may seem to consistently achieve amazing results with juvenile delinquents while another may be granted exceptional grace to minister to women with family problems and so on. It is vitally important that we who witness the grace of God upon the lives of these members in the various areas of service help to lead them to where God has called them.
Just as the presence of grace can be seen, it can also be developed and given in varying measures to believers. Peter exhorts the church to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18), and Paul writes to the Corinthian church encouraging them that “God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you; always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work” (2 Cor 9:8). The grace of God deposited in you is a place where you can safely grow until you develop the fullest potential for the work that God has prepared for you to do.
The Bible also speaks of the possibility of receiving ‘great’ and ‘manifold’ grace (Acts 4:33, 1 Pet 4:10), as well as of ‘nullifying,’ ‘falling short’ of, or ‘falling from’ grace (Gal 2:21; 5:4; Heb 12:15). It must be noted in the term `falling from grace’ that this was in the context where Paul was warning the Galatian church from returning to the law by serving God through their own efforts and he was not making a reference to their having sinned. To fall from grace is essentially to deny the grace that God freely gives, preferring to serve Him out of self-effort and labour instead of leaning on the provision given by Him. One of the major work of satan is to deceive the saints of God to fall from Grace and fall back on their effort to please God (law). We should always be diligent to lean hard on the grace of God.
Our Response To His Grace
Having understood what the grace of God means, let us proceed further to consider the response the Lord desires from us in regard to this.
It is not enough to simply acknowledge the presence of grace in our lives. As Hebrews 13:9 says, “…it is good that the heart be established by grace….” To be established by grace is to live a life in which grace operates in us as a lifestyle of dependence on God rather than only as a mere knowledge of its availability. If we acknowledge the little we can accomplish apart from the Lord, how crucial it would then be to look always to Him alone to perfect us, and to enable us to live a life that is pleasing to Him. `Unless the Lord builds the house, they labour in vain who build it” (Psalm 127:1). May we see then that even our efforts to establish ourselves in grace would prove futile since it is God alone who works in us and not we ourselves. Therefore, we see that how established we are in grace is really a measure of how dependent we are on the Lord.
Grace For Strength
In walking towards the call of God, the road is not always smooth. Sometimes there is an obstacle here and, at other times, a rock there. Whatever it is, when difficulty arises, do not despair, but remember the grace of God. It is there not only to give you additional power to do the work, but also to give you all the comfort and power you need when you have none to hold you up.
One of the measures of Christian maturity is the persistence to continually look to the Lord for divine empowerment and strength. When things collapse around us, would we return once again to His arms to receive new strength or would we lie fallen, crushed, and in despair? Two traits stand out in the life of David testifying of him as a “man after God’s own heart”. First, he sought the Lord in all he did, and second, he learnt how, under the most trying of circumstances, to always “strengthen himself in the Lord.”
We are not saying that you shouldn’t find help for yourself in times of trouble. Sometimes, even after several tries, you will not find much relief. Then, you will need to learn how to let God’s grace be the therapy. In times of need, God has promised grace sufficient to strengthen and to restore. Do not try to judge if this is enough for you (people usually end up making poor judgments in a spirit of anxiety anyway). If you trust in God, trust also in His judgment of what He thinks is good enough for you. God is good – He will not withhold from you.
If He chooses not to remove the source of pain, just as in the case of Paul (2 Cor. 12:7), He will make sufficient grace available to you to live a victorious life anyhow. Our hope must come to rest not on the alteration of circumstances around us (because sometimes they will not come), but on God, our loving Father. Perhaps some of us, though Christians for many years, have never been healed from the hurts and emotional wounds inflicted upon us by either unkind words or deeds by the people around. These hurts, if not resolved, will eventually eat into our lives like a malignant cancer, crippling our spiritual growth and causing hurt to those around us.
Healthy emotional growth must take place in order for these diseases to go, and it is entirely a “let go and let God” approach to take. Some sincere believers adopt a passive attitude towards their emotional hurts and do not recover from them until something happens to force them into therapy. God’s grace truly is sufficient to bind every gaping and tender wound in our hearts, and it can operate deep enough to restore any brokenness to wholeness. However, He requires our co-operation. While His grace will always be there for us, we must use it so that, with God, we can turn ashes to beauty.
Before we go further, let us state again that grace is the unmerited favour of God bestowed upon us to put us in a position of divine favour to receive all of the blessings and power (divine enablement) we need to be the instrument that He has called us to be.
Now, let us see how we can all use the grace of God to do the great and mighty things that He has called us to.
Appropriating the Grace Of God
Just as we have told you to depend on God for His grace for many things in your life, we also need to tell you that God depends on you to possess and use what He has given to you. You will need to press on to what you have in God, and let that do what needs to be done in you.
There are 2 keys to ensuring that we fully appropriate the grace of God given to us: the first of these is prayer; the second is a humble heart that allows God to use different channels of resources to heal, equip, and develop us.
Prayer
Is it not true that inasmuch as we know we are accepted before God, many are the times when, because of our sinful actions or thoughts, we allow our hearts to condemn us, causing us to doubt God’s continued grace upon our lives? Nevertheless, we are instructed that though this may indeed be the case, “God is greater than our hearts and knows all things.” (1 John 3:20-21) In other words, even in times when we are most undeserving , rather than withhold His grace from us, He continues to supply His favour as long as we continue to seek Him in prayer, believing that He is able to deliver us.
Whether we can proceed with the call of God upon our lives depends on whether we have any offence outstanding on our conscience. Confession to God will remove the offence, but as long as we accepts the accusation of satan, our conscience is stuck with it. We cannot effectively serve God until our conscience is at rest once again.
When we commit sin we dishonour God, but when thereafter we fail to put our trust in the blood of Christ for our sins, we dishonour Him even more. “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need”(Heb.4:15). God’s mercy is new every morning and He never rejects a truly repentant heart.
Humility
Humility, though existing in the understanding of many people as a virtue, is essentially a decision from the heart. Though Jesus was God, He “humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” (Phil 2:8). That humility which the Lord had was what drew grace into Him to help Him bear the pain of the cross.
“Be clothed with humility, for God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” (1 Pet.5:5-6)
There is a concept of sufficiency that is causing harm to some workers of God’s ministry. This notion is especially common among matured Christians. It presupposes that with God around, we won’t need anyone else. This posture is usually based on the doctrine that preaches the sufficiency of Christ. There is absolutely nothing incorrect in believing that Christ is sufficient for us. The problem arises when we interpret it to mean that help and power can only come directly from Him alone, His resources excluded. This is a very incorrect perception, and it is apparent the person who holds to such a belief has forgotten that “Christ is all and in all” (Col. 3:11). Our neighbour is still a part of Christ; the donkey that spoke to Balaam was also a part of Christ since it was a part of the creation made for Christ. Christ encompasses all things in heaven and on earth. Therefore when we talk about sufficiency in Christ, we are really looking at sufficiency in everything that God can bring to us out of His resources from every place.
It is possible that grace may even flow from a non-Christian resource. Remember the parable of the man who was attacked and robbed? It wasn’t the priest who walked by or the passing Levite who helped him. It was a Samaritan who stopped to minister help to him (Lk. 10:30-36).
God certainly can do all things, but that doesn’t oblige Him to be the sole satisfier of our needs all the time. He surely doesn’t cook the meals for the children’s ministry we are heading, nor does He stand by and flips the pages of the Bible for us while we preach. God uses all sorts of resources to help us in doing the work that He has called us to.
Yes, we depend on God’s grace, but remember that His grace can come through many different channels, and people are truly a means of distributing God’s grace: “Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them.” (Rom. 12:6)
If we are not receiving grace from God’s people, our perception of God is unnecessarily limited. We may even be alienating ourself from potential sources of assistance. Do not deny ourself needlessly. Needing each other’s gifts, love and counsel is the biblical pattern for growth and progress (2 Cor. 12:21).
At certain times, God may send particular people into our lives to equip and contribute significantly to what we are doing for God. These people are our mentors. They are living examples providing guidance, wisdom and support when we need.
They remain with us for either a protracted period of time or for a season to impart something God has placed upon their lives into ours. Mentors often play the role of pacesetters, so to speak, to encourage us to press on in our relationship with the Lord and to accelerate our speed of learning the things of God. They may be role models for us to follow in the various godly qualities or values they espouse or they may be excellent teachers in subject matters which the Lord has willed for us to be taught. These mentors often ensure we stay on the right track by keeping us accountable to them of our actions and our spiritual discipline.
Some of you may be a mentor to someone today, or you may be having someone mentoring over you. Either way, we have a word of caution for you.
To those called to be mentors, be very aware in this issue of accountability that you do not abuse the authority you have been given as an avenue to control those the Lord has placed under your charge. Rather, lead them as the Lord Himself would. Love them, and support their labour for God.
“Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by constraint but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly; nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock; and when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away.” (1 Pet.5:2-4)
For you who are eager to have mentors who can help you grow more speedily in the Lord, be patient and let God introduce the right people to you while you keep contact with the general fellowship of believers. As seen in the example of Elijah and Elisha, where Elijah was instructed beforehand on whom to mentor, it is the will of the Lord and not the zeal of man that raises spiritual mentors. Just as the Lord provides faithfully for his creation, He certainly knows how to satisfy our spiritual thirst for Him by sending the right people at the right time to watch over us and to help us along in our walk with Him. Of course, you may ask God to bring spiritual mentors into your life, but at the same time, remember that He loves you and knows your needs. Entrust the timing and choice of spiritual mentors into His safe hands.
There is indeed a value in people ministry. God’s Word is great, and His presence is sublime. But even so, He created people so that through all of us He can manifest more of Himself and His love for each one.
John, the beloved disciple and apostle of Jesus, supported this idea: “Having many things to write to you, I did not wish to do so with paper and ink; but I hope to come to you and speak face to face, that our joy may be full” (2 John 12).
Books
Another way in which God’s grace flows into our lives is through Christian literature. While not all who write have been called by the Lord to write, those who indeed have been instructed to do so undoubtedly carry a special anointing to impart spiritual truths to their readers. In Acts 19, we read that items as insignificant as handkerchiefs and aprons were used as instruments of great healing and deliverance. This was because the anointing of the Lord upon Paul flowed from him to touch the diseases of the multitudes. In the same way, God can use the anointed writings of His servants to impart spiritual blessing to His children.
Christian literature on theology such as exposition on the books of the Bible, character studies and topical studies show us Biblical principles in their proper context and help prevent us from being easily led astray. There is also Christian literature detailing significant movements in the work of the Holy Spirit through the ages and autobiographies of men and women of God who lived before us that reveal both the principles of their successes and failures. These works give us insight into the way the Holy Spirit operates, and help to prevent us from repeating the mistakes previously committed.
There are also books which deal with subjects pertaining specifically to our calling which help equip us to function better in our call. Appreciated seriously, Christian writings work hand-in-hand with the Lord in the area of grace given to us to help us fulfil God’s calling.
Then there are books on how to manage relationships in the family or in the body of Christ . And finally there are devotionals, which help us to walk closer to God, giving us meat to meditate on, helping us make better sense of the ways of God.
Read a variety of Christian literature and resources. They lend dimensions to our understanding of things and will prosper and mature us as a person.
Personal Desire vs. God’s Grace
The life and ministry of Paul sheds light on the difference between working out of a personal desire and flowing in the area of God’s grace. We know that Paul was an apostle called to minister specifically to the Gentiles. Yet, although Paul was well aware of this call upon His life, there were times when, out of his personal zeal and desire to see His own brethren in Israel saved, he spent time preaching to the Jews instead. We see instances of this in Damascus (Acts 9:20-25), Jerusalem (Acts 9:26-30), Antioch (Acts 11:25, 13:42-51), Lystra (Acts 14:19-20; 27), Thessalonica and Berea (Acts 17:1-5; 10-14), and Corinth (Acts 18:4-6). On each of these occasions, we notice that Paul faced immense persecution from the Jews—to the extent that he was finally persuaded to “shake the dust off his feet” (Acts 13:51, Acts 18:6) and turn to the Gentiles instead (Acts 13:47). The persecution that Paul faced appeared therefore to have been a direct consequence of his ministry to the Jews, which stemmed from his personal desire and love for them rather than an instruction from the Lord. We observe, too, how on these occasions, where Gentiles were present in the assembly together with the Jews, that it was these Gentiles who inadvertently received the gospel message with joy (Acts 13:48), demonstrating again the grace of God given to Paul towards the Gentiles.
There is a difference between preaching a biblical theme and citing a biblical example. Teachings are directives and instructions from God’s Word which we must follow but examples are not. Examples show us in general how we can seek God on our own situation and then decide on the course of action. We would not commit as doctrines what are given as examples. But if you feel that God is telling you something specific from Paul’s example, we urge you to consider His promptings carefully. It helps to stay faithful in the area of grace the Lord has given to us and to “remain in the same calling in which (we were) called” (1 Cor. 7:20). Spending our strength on what the Lord has not called us to, we can easily see, will leave little or even nothing in us for what He has entrusted to us.
Sanctified Lives
“In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honour and some for dishonour. Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honour, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work.” (2 Tim 2:20-21)
The lesson we are trying to learn in this chapter is working by grace. There is a work that God has prepared in advance for us to do but this job is too big for our own human effort. We need the grace of God in order to do a good job. Trying to do it on our own will only makes us self-reliant workers who labour in vain in our own strength. But even before we start obeying our calling, we are required by God to be vessels that are continually in the process of becoming holy and sanctified. Here we now come to the ultimate responsibility that we must take for ourselves.
We are to become God’s partner in the process of sanctification that makes us holy. The key to sanctifying ourselves lies essentially in a willing heart. The work of sanctification is not a unilateral effort from us to try to achieve results, for we are told that “it is God who works in us to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Phil 2:13-14) even though it is true that “we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works” (Eph. 2:10). In effect, what this means is that we are partners with God in whatever good work that needs to be done in us and through us.
John says that “Loving God means doing what He tells us to do, and really, that isn’t hard at all; for every child of God can obey Him, defeating sin and evil pleasure by trusting Christ to help him” (1 John 5:3-4). In order to break free from sinful habits, trust in God’s power to do that, walk towards the light, fix your eyes upon Jesus and receive His grace to overcome.
When we come before God in an encounter with His Spirit, we will be silenced by His holiness. Sooner or later, this encounter will force a comparison between the desperate state of our self and the glorious one of His. However, His grace will give the allowance and make it possible for us to sanctify ourselves as He desires for us.
“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.” (James 4:8-10)
God’s grace is the principal ingredient in our sanctification process, but we have our distinct roles to play too. We are stewards of our salvation and sanctification – that will never change. The grace of God cannot be treated as our slave either. We need to make the necessary effort to appropriate God’s grace into our lives and our work so that it can work for us. While we rejoice in having God’s grace, we would in fact be dishonouring it by our slackness if we do not lay hold of it and use it in a rightful manner.
“By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly…yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” (1 Cor.15:10)
While sanctification is not a process sustained by self-effort, it requires one’s serious involvement]. You can’t absolve yourself from that responsibility. So, work hard with God on that, using all that He has given you—His grace in particular.
