“My Grace Is Enough” – {2 Corinthians 12:9}

When our oldest son was about 6 years old we took him and siblings to a restaurant and they had a frozen yogurt machine that was self -serve. He stood up on his tippy toes pulled the handle down and the yogurt began to swirl down to his cone, which he held beneath it. I heard a cry for “help’ coming from him and looked to see he was trying with all his might to push back up the handle and stop anymore yogurt coming out, but he was not strong enough to do so and the yogurt kept coming and coming. Imagine with me, if I did not help him, he would have been covered in yogurt from head to toe. But eventually the machine would run dry as it could only contain a certain amount of the frozen yogurt at a time. “But God…” His grace is not like that. His grace is infinite, influencing, available and cannot be diminished, weakened, or dry up.

In the original the Greek word order is, “Sufficient for you is the grace of Me.”  Amazing He Himself is THE Grace and He imparts Himself, for He is always with them {Matt 28:20}. He does not dole out grace and head off to the next person. He is always with you. He is all you need. He Himself is THE Grace and His is abundant! What a promise you have! He is THE Grace. He is The Power for you! What a Promise, irrespective of the pain Paul experienced, there was THE Grace of the Lord Jesus for him. The Power of the Lord Jesus his to avail of!

 

“Sufficient” the word means, adequate, “ENOUGH.” The magnitude of the grace of God is beyond our comprehension but that does not mean we cannot avail of HIM. Paul in this passage in 2 Corinthians 12 gives us something of a glimpse of it as he testifies to the grace of God. He had been given some wonderful visions and revelations of the Lord” {v1-2} A “thorn” had been given him so he would “not exalt himself” in light of the visions he had received. Paul asks three times for the painful “thorn” to be removed, and each time he was met with the answer,  “Sufficient for you is the grace of Me for power is perfected in weakness.”

 

PRAYER AND  THE “THORN.”

In your circumstances, the LORD has the power to answer. Sometimes He answers by removing the “thorn.” We often pray to this end, but when He does not then we often find an “offense” in Him. Why?

The Deficiency is not in the LORD.

The Deficiency is not in His Grace.

The Deficiency at times is in our view of God

We falsely believe God is OBLIGATED to answer our payer the way we Want! The Deficiency is our attitude very often is,”my will be done!” rather than a heart in submission,”Your will be done !” And when we do not get the answer we want- He becomes a stumbling block to us! We wrongly believe He exists for us, rather than we exist for Him and His purposes. We are to pray from a heart of submission, asking Him to remove the “thorn” but if not, knowing He has a purpose and HE is sufficient for us in it. If you find you cannot pray from such a heart, ask Him to help you come to that place. His grace extends to every area of our lives!

 

 TWO WAYS THE LORD COULD DEAL WITH THE “THORN” would have been to remove it – which He didn’t but we see the second way He deals with, is to impart Himself. Displaying Himself to and through Paul. The Lord did not answer Paul the way he had asked to remove the “thorn.” Jesus is “the grace,”-His grace and power to endure the pain, not somehow but transforming the attitude of the man in pain, as he perceives all he needs he has in Christ! Paul saw Jesus was enough! We need to use our sorrows, “thorn” as a means to deepen our faith, our dependance upon the LORD. Don’t waste your sorrows. Use them as a springboard to pray and depend by faith on the LORD to meet you with Himself! 

Alexander MacLean wrote, “A grief, a trial, an incapacity, a limitation, a weakness, which we use as a means of deepening our sense of dependence upon Him, is a blessing, and not a sorrow.”

 

From  2 Corinthian 12:7-10 WE CAN GLEAN SOME TRUTHS TO ENCOURAGE, STRENGTHEN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP GOD WITH…

 

“ENOUGH GRACE!”

  • Enough Grace to Understand the purpose of the “thorn. – “Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations there was given me a “thorn” to keep me from exalting myself.” –v7

  •  Enough Grace to Pray amidst pain. – “I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me,” v8

  • Enough Grace to be Dispensed.– “ My Grace is Enough {sufficient } “-v9

  • Enough Grace for Power to be unleashed in weakness – “…Power is perfected through weakness.” –v9

  • Enough Grace to Boast irrespective of troubles – “I will rather boast about my weaknesses that the power of Christ might dwell on me.” – ‘v9  

  • Enough Grace to be “Content.” – ” I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with persecutions, with distresses, with difficulties, FOR CHRIST SAKE; for when I am weak i am strong.”– v10

Let your heart soar as you rest in the truth, you always have “ENOUGH!” grace, moment by moment! You can no more exhaust the Grace of God than a tad pole can drink all the water in the oceans! For each moment you live you have ENOUGH Grace. The word “grace” is mentioned 155 times in the New Testament. Familiarize yourself with Him, His Word, His promises, His grace! We were saved by Grace and yet we try and earn His favor and acceptance when He already has Totally Accepted you and me based solely on the performance of Jesus! We “stand” in grace and there is grace for us to operate our lives, Strengthening us, sustaining, satisfying grace to continue to serve Him. His influential favor and enabling for us. Paul wrote, “not that we are Sufficient within ourselves… BUT our Sufficiency is FROM GOD”- Note ; Looking to self = Deficiency.  Now, note where comes your sufficiency –  “…FROM GOD.”

Jesus Christ is ENOUGH. ENOUGH GRACE for you, whatever the circumstance. His abundant grace, is yours “In Christ! {Ephesians 2:8-9; Ephesians 1:6;Romans 5:2; 2 Cor 3:4.}. 

 The word “sufficient” means “ENOUGH” and with the implication…”SATISFIES!”

 He is ENOUGH and His Grace Satisfies!  “ENOUGH!” Let your heart answer any testing, trial with this triumphant word of faith, -“ENOUGH GRACE- FOR ME!”

Share this good news with someone today –“ENOUGH GRACE” for me and you