But God gives more grace. Enabling grace III

The need to forgive (see “Don't get mad, get even and poison yourself than those you love” January 2011) is perhaps exceeded only betimes, by the difficulty in doing it. The writer to the Hebrews connects the failure to forgive with our failing to obtain God's grace (enabling) to do it (Hebrews 12:15). In a relatively trivial incident just this morning, the Lord reminded me of the availability of His grace to deal with disappointment, frustration and the like.

The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 5, that together with God's salvation, we are given “access into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God” (verse 2). We can think of this aspect of God's grace as the wherewithal to do what He commands us to do, and in particular to do the things we cannot do without Him. So then the times we need His enabling grace the most, are our times of difficulty. It is His intention that we rise above the circumstances of life, above its trials and temptations and devastating disappointments. James tells us that we are to count it all joy when we encounter trials and temptations of various kinds (James 1:2). The intention here is not simply to grit ones teeth in the face of all that happens, but to actually “Push through the pain into joy” (see last day's post). Doing this requires of us a radical trust in God. Coming to this place in the Christian life is a process, and one which Paul describes in the Romans 5 passage. He says “we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us” (verse 3-5).

There is a lot in this passage, but the end of it all is that we get to experience the “poured out love” in our hearts, that is as long as we do not fail to tap into this “grace in which we stand”. The Hebrews passage mentioned above admonishes us to be diligent to ensure that this does not happen. But how do we do this? Perhaps the place to start is to ask what is the opposite reaction to 'rejoicing in our trials'.

In the past I have been guilty of letting many things offend me. This manifested itself by my allowing the negative thoughts to go round and round and round in my mind. To do this is, in effect, to nurse the hurt or the resentment or the anger, and these things easily grow to consume you. When these things go on for long enough, and become full blown, it is more than a little difficult to stop them. The Christian does have the authority to “bring every thought captive unto the obedience of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 10:5), but again learning to exercise that authority is a process. It is easier if we stop things at the beginning, but in any case, it starts with crying out to God for his help.

As part of this, we need to learn to stop fighting the people and circumstances that God allows in our lives, to refine us. He tells us in Romans 8:28 that He is at work in all things (not just some things, but all things) for good, for those of us who love Him and are called according to His purpose. We need to receive this by faith. In particular if it is by faith, we cannot demand that He show us how this trial can possible work out for our good. There will be times when our whole being will scream out that this cannot be so, as when we loose a child, or if we are seeing loved ones suffer, or if we have been abused. Please note, the verse is not saying that these things are good, what the verse is saying is that God is at actively at work even in and through the evil, for our good. It is easy to trust in the good times, but to trust in the evil day is well pleasing to Him.

Sometimes God shows us explicitly how He is working things out for our good. When we allow Him to heal us with His “love poured out”, for example He uses our tragedies to minister to others who are hurting in the same way that we were hurt. A widow who has learned to receive God's comfort, can comfort the more recently bereaved (2 Corinthians 1:4). When we are willing to admit that we have sinned or made mistakes, He can use our confession to help others (particularly those we love) to avoid the traps into which we fell. But if we can see nothing else, we can (as the verse which follows Roman's 8:28 promises), believe that our submission and trust are making us more like Jesus, and that this will always produce fruit for the Kingdom. This is the essence of the verse that immediately follows Romans 8:28 i.e verse 29!

From time to time we see outstanding examples of this fruit through pain. I am thinking people like Joni Eareckson Tada, or Anne Marie Hagan or Nick Vujicic (Google these names). But while we may not all achieve their level of freedom, we can all start the process. As it says in Romans 5 quoted above, when we stop fighting these things and choose with His help (His grace) to start to rejoice, then this produces endurance (the ability to stand up under trial) and this in turn refines our character, and the experience of this together with His out poured love in our hearts produces the hope which reinforces it all. And all this redounds to the “glory of God” (verse 2 again). With Paul we will know that His grace is sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9). We may betimes feel overwhelmed, but when we do “God gives more grace” (James 4:6).

Prayer: Father help me to trust you in the difficult times, and give me what I need (Your Grace) to cooperate with You. Take away the blocks I have in place that prevent me from experience Your “Love poured out”, in Jesus Name.