My Grace is Sufficient

2 Corinthians 12:9 ⁹But He said to me, My grace (My favor and loving-kindness and mercy) is enough for you [sufficient against any danger and enables you to bear the trouble manfully]; for My strength and power are made perfect (fulfilled and completed) and show themselves most effective in [your] weakness. Therefore, I will all the more gladly glory in my weaknesses and infirmities, that the strength and power of Christ (the Messiah) may rest (yes, may pitch a tent over and dwell) upon me!

I love, love, love this scripture. It is one I know well, but at the same time seem to easily forget. In the verses before this one the apostle Paul speaks of how he is being buffeted by a messenger from Satan.

Let’s stop right there for a minute and interject that a messenger from Satan might not always look like the devil. Sometimes that messenger can appear in the form of a friend or family member, a coworker…. No I didn’t say our friends, family members and coworkers are from the devil. But he sure does know how to use them sometimes to get under our skin.

So anyways, Paul said that a messenger from Satan came to buffet him, or basically to harass him. Three times, Paul prayed and asked the Lord and begged that it would stop. But God’s answer wasn’t quite what he expected. God didn’t say He would remove the annoyance, He said My grace is sufficient for you. Not only sufficient against any danger but it will also enable you to bear the trouble manfully.

When things come to buffet us, to harass us, to try to steal our peace and short circuit our joy we may tend to focus on the problem. Have you been there? You don’t understand why it won’t stop, you try to fight it, you do everything you know how to do, but that thing is still there trying to oppress you? That’s because we don’t need the problem to go away, we just need to use the grace of God to override it.

God’s grace is His ability in you, allowing you to do the things you couldn’t do by yourself. So often we try to fight things in our own strength, but really we just need to call on the grace of God. His strength, beats ours any day. This verse says His strength becomes perfect in our weakness. That means where we leave off, He steps in and does it better than we ever could’ve on our own.

In the last part of this verse Paul says Therefore, I will all the more gladly glory in my weaknesses and infirmities, that the strength and power of Christ (the Messiah) may rest (yes, may pitch a tent over and dwell) upon me!

I don’t know about you, but I sure want the strength and power of Christ to rest, dwell and pitch a tent over me! Next time you feel like you are being harassed, stop, ask God for His grace and let His strength and power come to your rescue.  Rest in the knowledge that you don’t have to fight the battle, because He will take care of it.