God’ s Amazing Grace Pt 4
In my last blog (see part 1,2,3) we looked at three ways to activate God’s grace in your life:
You must:
- Be aware of it
- Believe in it, and
- Choose it
In this post we will look at the fourth way to tap into God’s grace:
You must RECOGNIZE it.
It is very difficult to partner with the grace of God in your life if you don’t know how to identify it.
There are three places you can identity God’s grace in your life:
- AROUND you
- IN you, and
- THROUGH you
Today we will look at recognizing the grace of God around you.
What I have found is that about 90% of God’s grace comes through people.
There are times God’s provision falls out of the sky like the raven that fed the prophet, Elijah, steak every day. But most of the time God simply gives one of His people a nudge to do something for someone else – an affirming word, an encouraging text, a financial gift, an opportunity, a prophetic word, or practical help. And to benefit from these God-nudges there are two things that must take place:
Giving AND Receiving!
Here’s the big problem, most people are great givers, but horrible receivers. What is that about? People who are stingy are simply either fearful or greedy. But why do some people have such a tough time receiving from others? Honestly, there are only two answers to that question:
Pride or Shame.
Pride says, “I can take care of myself.” When the truth is, there are times when you just can’t. You will need help.
And shame says, “I am not worthy of other people’s time, energy, or money. I wouldn’t want anyone to inconvenience themselves for little ‘ol me.” Well, then, forget about the grace of God.
Know this, when you say, “No, thank you” to someone offering you help, you just said no to God.
This HAS to change for God to get His grace to you. When you won’t receive help, you block the kingdom flow. You block God’s flow.
And it gets even worse. When you finally do decide to humble yourself and receive help from others, so often we are expecting God to do to it this way, and He does it that way. Or we expect Him to come through this door and He comes through that door. Or we expect Him to use this person, and He chooses to use that person. And oft times it’s a person you would never choose or want help from.
Often God will offend our minds to reveal our hearts.
This is how the Jews missed Jesus, their Messiah. They were expecting Jesus to come as a king, riding in on a white horse, and overthrowing the Roman government. Instead, He came as a Baby, in an obscure town, to a poor family. They just couldn’t wrap their minds around this. So they killed Him.
So often we can miss God’s grace when it’s right in front of us, unless we remain open to letting God send us His help in any way, and through anyone, He chooses.
AND you must change your “No Thank you” to “Yes, thank you!”
Practice that. Practice saying, “Yes, thank you.” Go ahead. Start today. Those two magic words will open up the floodgates of heaven in your life.
“For I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” Philippians 1:19 NKJ
John
P.S. To listen/watch this entire message go HERE