God's Sufficient Grace

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me." - 2 Corinthians 12:9

I'm not much of an "original language" teacher. But once in a while in my study of a passage, I am rocked by some nuance of meaning I learn from the Bible's original language. I love the Greek word order of 2 Corinthians 12:9: "Sufficient for you is the grace of Me." That is an incredible promise! Sufficient for you is the grace of Me.

Think for a moment about the place where you meet with God. Your regular place. Is it a chair in your bedroom? Or at the kitchen table? Or as a father of five small children told me this week, is it the backseat of your car in the garage?

I can picture the place where I met with God years ago in my dorm room at college; I can picture where I met with God in the apartment where we lived in seminary; I can picture the little blue love seat that I used to sit on in our first house. I can picture my chair back at home right now where I meet with the Lord every day.

I find myself wondering, how many times have I gotten up from that place and left God's sufficient grace there? The Lord was there with me - holding out to me the grace for the trial I was going to face that day even as my mind was drifting off to my own plan. How many days did I run down the hall and off to my car and out to a busy day and leave Him sitting there with His sufficient grace?

"Sufficient for today is the grace of Me," God says.

If I'm going to live by that sufficient grace, I'm not going to catch it falling from the sky as I run to my next appointment. I've got to go to the fountain and drink deeply. He is the One who quenches my thirst. He is the One who fills up what's missing. He is the One who satisfies my deepest longings. He is the One who brings and sustains a continuous revival in my life.

James MacDonald
www.walkintheword.com