October 26, 2018
His Grace Is All I Need
But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners
Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8 NRSV
When Saint Paul petitioned God
about a personal issue, the one he characterized as a thorn in his flesh, God’s
response was “My grace is sufficient for
you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:8). God’s
grace is God adopting us as his own children and inviting us to know Him as our
“Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15). Being
adopted by God means we are able to live with nothing between us and God, our
faces shining with the brightness of his face. This reality empowers us to
respond to our personal issues as we are being transfigured, much like the
Messiah, and as our lives are gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as
God enters our lives and we become like him. (See 2 Corinthians 3:16-18 MSG).
The wonder of our right-standing, as God’s adopted children, is that God made
this all possible through Christ dying for us while we were still lost and separated
from Him in our sin.
This truth means that God’s
response to Saint Paul, and to each of us as we petition Him about our personal
issues, is the same guidance God gives us for our daily living: “My grace is all you need. My power works
best in weakness.” Even though we know the entirety of our relationship
with God is rooted in God’s grace, we try desperately to fashion a religious
system by which we can measure our lives and reach a verdict that we are worthy
to inherit God’s promise of eternal life. Listen to the formal, as well as the
informal, eulogies after a person has died. They tend to accentuate the
positive, and ignore the negative, in vain efforts to qualify the deceased for
a heavenly reward.
Christ’s death provided the way
for my right-standing relationship with God, my Abba Father. Christ’s death was
sufficient for me the day God’s prevenient grace opened my heart to receive His
offer of salvation. Christ’s death will be sufficient to cover my sins with his
blood today, and tomorrow, all the tomorrows of my life, until by God’s grace
my faith becomes sight, and I behold by Savior, face to face.
My Takeaway: The greatest challenge I face in my mortal life is to
daily resist the urges of moralism and legalism. God’s plan was to save me by
His grace, and for me to live day by day in His grace, because His grace is all I need.
Sē’lah
Alex
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(Selah is a word that appears in the
Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my
correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about
these things.)
These
meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his
way of life. The meditations are
published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/
and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may
subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by
subscription.
Publications by Alex M. Knight:
·
Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New
Testament and Psalms has been
published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.
·
The second
edition of First Think – Then Pray
is available on Amazon Kindle.
·
Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus
Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.
Unless
otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible,
New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica,
Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
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