Encouragement Through Grace

Let’s look at 2 Thessalonians 2:16 and 17 today and make it our personal confession, based on the King James Version of the Bible and the Amplified Bible.

Now, my Lord Jesus Christ Himself and my God, Who is my Father, loves me.
They have given me everlasting consolation and encouragement and well-founded hope through their grace.
They comfort and encourage my heart through their grace.
They establish me in every good word and every good work through their grace.
They strengthen me; they keep me steadfast and they keep me unswerving in every good word and every good work through their grace.
The grace of my Lord Jesus Christ and my Father gives me the courage and the strength to do every good work.
They encourage me and strengthen me to do what they have destined for me to do.
When I need hope, my Father and Jesus give me hope. Their grace is all I need.

As I was talking to the Lord today about this verse, once again I was asking Him for a way to explain grace in a simple manner so that all of us could understand. This is what I perceived from Him.

Grace is God’s Love which is His ability made available on our behalf. We don’t deserve it or earn it in any way. It is made available to us because He loves us so dearly. It is His whole realm, His whole Kingdom, His whole nature, His whole way of doing things that is ours. It is released when our faith in God connects with Him, Who is Love. He is grace. He is Love made available. God is Love. Faith is the connector. And faith is developed by spending time with the Lord and His Word.

What a wonderful opportunity each one of us has as mankind in this world to represent the Lord. And we are not on our own to do it. He gives us His power, His ability, His grace to do what we are to do. What a delightful way to live! God supplies the grace. We supply the faith and trust. He does the rest.

I can hear some of you right now. Yes, that’s easy for you to say. You don’t know where I am. You don’t know how hard it is. And my reply to you is this: You don’t know where I am or what I have to contend with every day. We all have our challenges as we live in this world and work for Jesus, representing Him, whether it is as a wife and mother or husband and father, a worker on the job, an employee in the marketplace, a minister. Whatever we do, there will be roadblocks and challenges put in our path. That is the job of our enemy, the devil. He does everything possible to attempt to discourage us.

God is saying to us over and over in His Word. My grace is sufficient. That is what He told Paul. What He was saying to Paul and to you and me is that His Love, which is the container of His ability is all we need. We don’t need our ability. It will produce nothing but frustration and hard work that makes us tired and brings in little results.

I don’t know about you, but I certainly am glad that I have the Lord and that He is teaching me every day how to lean on Him, how to rely on His ability to get the job done. I am reminded here of the old farmer whom someone complimented on his farm and told him that the Lord certainly had helped him. His reply to the comment was that you should have seen it when just the Lord was in charge (meaning there were weeds, etc.). I am using this statement to make the point here that we do have to do physical labor sometimes and there are things we have to do, but God will direct us and give us the wisdom to know how to do it quickly and efficiently.

His grace is sufficient.