We…plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain.
—2 Corinthians 6:1
{CHAMBERS} “The
grace you had yesterday will not be sufficient for today. Grace is the
overflowing favor of God, and you can always count on it being available to
draw upon as needed. “…in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in
distresses”— that is where our patience is tested (2 Corinthians 6:4). Are you
failing to rely on the grace of God there? Are you saying to yourself, “Oh
well, I won’t count this time”? It is not a question of praying and asking God
to help you— it is taking the grace of God now. We tend to make prayer the
preparation for our service, yet it is never that in the Bible. Prayer is the
practice of drawing on the grace of God. Don’t say, “I will endure this until I
can get away and pray.” Pray now — draw on the grace of God in your moment of need.
Prayer is the most normal and useful thing; it is not simply a reflex action of
your devotion to God.”
{ELGIN} The idea is that God gives us what we need
for the moment. (Matthew 6:25-34) “For this reason I [Jesus] say to you, do not be
worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor
for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the
body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow,
nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are
you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a
single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe
how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say
to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of
these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and
tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of
little faith! Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we
drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all
these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But
seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added
to you. “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each
day has enough trouble of its own.”
Jesus gave us the example of always looking to the Father. Have you ever said “I don’t know how we are
going to ………” you can fill in the blank.
When life seems impossible. A
friend of mine had a sticker that said “Life may seem impossible, but it is
always Him-possible” God is the source –
that is what Father means. I heard someone
scoffing (a man) the other day about the thinking that a man must always be the provider when women are perfectly
capable of working and earning for the family.
It made me think of how we often have a better idea about how life
should work. That is not to say that women
should not work. But very often, women
must go to work because the family is trying to maintain a lifestyle and not to
nurture a family. I am not speaking to
situations where the woman must work because the husband can’t or won’t. When our want is greater than God’s
provision, we often put our own plan of provision into place to “make it happen”. In the same way, we worry about tomorrow ..
well, in this country, we worry about 40 years from now. Many people save so
they will be “free” to serve God when they retire. I wonder what they would do if god wanted to serve
today. How do we balance that thinking in light of Jesus
words? Our culture would call my
thinking irresponsible. (1 Corinthians 2:14) “But a natural man
does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to
him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.” Jesus was totally dependent upon the Father
.. as we should be. If you are sincerely
depending upon God, you will be constantly looking up to the Father and not in
to your own designs.
No comments:
Post a Comment