Power Of Over And Above

Key Scripture:  “He gives more grace.”  James 4:6

Power Point:

Have you ever asked yourself, “Why did God let that happen?”  Or, “She’s getting on my last nerve.  I don’t understand why God doesn’t fix her.” Or, “Why doesn’t God just get that thing or that person out of my life.  I’m tired of this.” 

The truth of the matter is that God is in the process of letting you know Who He wants to be for you in that situation or with that person.  They seem to know exactly which button to push and they enjoy pushing it.  You on the other hand, feel defenseless, helpless, and maybe even a little angry. You may be “in the right” but God is strangely quiet.

Having recently gone through a long-standing issue with someone, I decided to ask the Lord why He didn’t seem to be changing them. He said, “I’m changing you.  I’m transforming you into My image.  I want to show you how to tap into the well of living water and living wisdom that’s in you. I want to show you how to resist the devil, draw the water out of your well and understand the depths of my Grace for you. And for them.

     It was a bit different from the picture I had of what I wanted to do. I wanted to throw them into the well and put a lid on it!

Well of Grace

      The thing we most often forget is that God always operates from a place of grace, and He wants us to operate in grace too. I shared a few days ago about a picture I had seen of Jesus. When He asked me how I thought He would act toward me if I had just done the worst thing imaginable He showed me a picture of Himself reaching out His arms to me with a stunning look of love in His eyes.  Today He reminded me of that picture but He asked me, how would I expect Him to act toward me if I had done something amazingly good before He walked into the room.  Although I had expected Him to have different responses, He never does. His love is unconditional. That means it is never dependent on what I do. His responses are totally dependent on who He is. And He never changes remember?

     Beloved, when we really grasp this truth it will set us free and everyone in our lives will be free as well. If God loves us no matter what, and He is IN us, we have the opportunity to love them no matter what they do as well. The fruit of that love is pictured for us in the book of Job.  His friends had to be the worst friends ever. Truly. But when Job saw God with a revelation of who He was for Him, it destroyed the control that fear had over his life. He began to understand that God was good all the time, no matter what he did to mess things up. He was so blessed by knowing God intimately that he immediately forgave and forgot what his friends had done. He began to pray for them. I’m pretty sure that he didn’t ask that God would “deal with them as they deserved”.   I’m confident that he didn’t ask God to get them out of his life. I believe that he wanted those friends to walk through the same doorway he had just entered into. He was so stunned by the goodness of God that he wanted his friends to know it too.

     And the response?  God blessed him with twice as much as he had before.  His friends could see who God really was. Their minds were transformed by His goodness. And I’m sure that as they learned to abide in grace, their lives were changed too.

     Remember these qualities as you head out into your day: unconditional love, amazing grace, and perfect peace. In Job 22 it says, “Acquaint yourself with Him and be at peace.”

Are you well acquainted with His grace today? Then spread it around.

Power Thought:

If you run out of grace, He’s always got more. And the more you give, the more you receive back. Nice.

I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.
Mother Teresa