Prayer of Thanks For His Sufficient Grace

5 Prayers that Thank God for His Amazing Grace – Counting My Blessings

I can’t say it’s necessarily the way I was taught as a child … it just seemed to evolve over time.

I knew God had fully taken care of my salvation through Jesus sacrifice and that through faith in His amazing gift my eternal future was secure…

But my here and now — that was influenced by God’s favor given in response to my behavior.

I had childish faith!

Faith that believed God loved me more when I was “good” and less when I wasn’t.

Which is one of the reasons why I love the following quotes so much:

“Though our feelings come and go, God’s love for us does not!” ~ C. S. Lewis

“The sin underneath all our sins is to trust the lie of the serpent that we cannot trust the love and grace of Christ and must take matters into our own hands” ~ Martin Luther

It took a lot of bumps in the road that send me deep into His Word before I finally believed I could completely trust God’s awesome amazing grace and love! Grace that covers my past and yours. Grace that forgives without any help from you or me. Grace that is undeserved and simply to be received with gratitude and joy.

So, I’m hoping you’ll join me as I turn to God’s Word for a daily dose of grace — praying and praising Him for this awesome and amazing gift.

Ephesians 2:8–9

Father, thank you for Jesus, Your perfect gift of grace. I know my eternal future is secure because all You have done for me through Jesus. You have made me yours forever. Nothing can remove me from Your hand. (John 10:29) I am safe and secure in Your unchanging love. How can I begin to thank You?! With my life. I give You my all. I love You, Lord. Amen. 

Romans 6:13b–14

Father, how I have struggled to understand the freedom You give. Forgive me for believing I live under the Law’s requirements. Thank you for Your patience in teaching me Your truth.

When my heart and mind are set on You — when I am fully surrendered and living for Your glory, then and only then can I know true freedom.

By the power of Your Spirit help me keep me surrendered and grateful … and fully alive to serve and glorify You. Amen.

Hebrews 4:16

Father, it overwhelms me that You want me to enter throne room in prayer. It is in that holy place where I have learned to “be still and know You.” (Psalm 46:10) It is there I have found Your mercy that forgives my foolish selfishness and Your grace that saves me. Thank you for Jesus, our example … who understands who I am, loves me, and helps me. Amen.  

Romans 5:6

And since it is through God’s kindness, then it is not by their good works. For, in that case, God’s grace would not be what it really is—free and undeserved.

Father, You are kind and good. It is impossible for anyone to deserve what Jesus has done. Your grace is free, undeserved, and unconditional.

There is nothing I can ever do to repay You for all You’ve done and all You continue to do in my life. I am saved by Your grace alone and in humble response I humbly thank you and offer myself to You.

With Your Spirit’s help, may I live this day for Your glory. Amen.

2 Corinthians 13:14

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Father, Jesus is Your grace with flesh on. He revealed your love to us and Your Spirit reveals Your mercy, grace, and love in countless ways every day. Thank you for Your presence in my life. Your grace is truly amazing! In Jesus name, I pray. Amen.

Make an intentional effort as you go throughout the day to stop and celebrate God’s amazing gift of grace. Praise Him for the fact that there is nothing you can do to earn or deserve it.

God gives His grace simply because He loves you that much.

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Источник: //countingmyblessings.com/amazing-grace-prayers/

God Asks: Do You Believe My Grace Is Sufficient For You?

Why does God say, “My grace is sufficient for you?”

And what does it mean that God’s power is made perfect in weakness?

Ponder, for a moment, all the ways God displays his power. He controls the raging, torrential storms and the crippling droughts. He causes pompous, blustery dictators and kings and presidents to rise and fall.

Occasionally, he puts the laws of nature in detention and does the miraculous, when a woman in our church was healed from terminal Stage 4 breast cancer.

God isn’t the insecure, overly pimpled high school bully who constantly feels he needs to establish his dominance. He’s quite confident in his power and has an infinite variety of ways he can flex his figurative biceps.

Throughout scripture, God makes it clear that we should have a healthy fear of the Lord.

All of this makes God’s preferred method of showing off his power rather strange. God’s grace is sufficient, and his is power is made perfect… …in weakness. …in brokenness. …in weariness. When Paul begged God to take away his thorn (whatever it was), God said this to him:

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

This is one of those scriptural double take, spew the water in surprise moments. It doesn’t make sense on the surface.

God could have delivered Paul and said to him, “My power is made perfect in my deliverance.” He could have said, “My mighty deliverance is sufficient for you.” But he didn’t.

Instead, he left Paul in his crippled state and said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Weakness.

God’s power is greatest when we’re at our weakest.

And what we need most in our weakness is God’s sufficient grace, not more strength and not a dramatic deliverance.

In other words, what we need most is NOT a chance in circumstances. Rather, we need to God’s grace that is sufficient for the very circumstances we find ourselves in. This is so backward from how the world operates.

We to show off our strength. To act we’ve got it all together. But this is the opposite of God. His power is made perfect in weakness. Why is this? Why is God so doggedly insistent on using weaknesses, MY WEAKNESSES, to show off his strength? Why does God repeatedly say, “My grace is sufficient for you?”

Here’s why…

Helpful Resource:

1. “My Grace Is Sufficient For You,” Means God Gets All The Glory

If I could sustain myself through trials by my own grit and moxie, then I could take some of the glory.

I made it on my own. I locked and loaded, buckled down, and hacked and whacked my way to the finish line.

But I can’t sustain myself in the slightest. If God wasn’t behind me pushing and before me making a way, I would head toward apostasy at the first sign of trials. No one will be boasting of their own strength in heaven. I will be boasting about how God sustained me through depression and heartache and trials. I will be boasting about how God answered my desperate prayers for my children.

God’s power is made perfect in weakness because it ensures that he alone gets all the glory. If God’s grace alone is sufficient to sustain me, I can’t take credit for sustaining myself.

God does it all, and we will boast only in him.

2. When God’s Grace Is Sufficient, It Shines A Spotlight On God’s Power

One of the great lies I’m tempted to believe is that I’m sufficient. For everything. For life, for marriage, for parenting, for working – the whole ball of wax.

Trials are a match that torch my facade and fallacy. I have zero ounces of sufficiency in myself. This reality is highlighted all the more when I’m in dire circumstances. I simply don’t have the spiritual strength keep going when the Red Sea is before me and the Egyptians are behind me.

If everything hinged on me, I would lose my salvation.

However, God’s grace IS sufficient. God is Omni-sufficient. Sufficiency and strength and power course through his being and he is able to keep me through the bleakest struggles.

When I’m up against the wall, it forces me to cry out, “God, only you’re grace is sufficient to sustain me!” And when he delivers me, his power, not mine, is put on full display.

3. “My Grace Is Sufficient For You,” Highlights The Glory Of His Deliverance

God loves to deliver his people when the stakes are highest and the odds are the worst. He loves to come through in Hail Mary, do-or-die, Helm’s Deep is surrounded, situations. God wouldn’t let Gideon use 30,000 or 3,000 men.

He carved his army down to a measly 300 men, making the odds of victory so unfathomably small that only God could bring deliverance.

Goliath was an executioner armed with a colossal sword and spear. David was a shepherd boy attacking with a sling and a few rocks. Only God could snatch victory from the jaws of this defeat.

God’s power is made perfect in weakness because it shows that God and only God can deliver. We don’t have the power to rescue or deliver or save. But God’s grace is sufficient to do all those things.

4. If His Grace Is Sufficient, It Forces Me To Trust In God Alone

In 2 Corinthians 1:8-9, Paul recounts one of his darkest moments:

For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.

God allowed Paul’s circumstances to become so bleak, so dire, so desperate, that he felt as if he had received a death sentence. From Paul’s perspective, death appeared to be imminent.

Why would God let things get so horrifically bad? Why would he let Isaac get all the way to the altar? Why would he let Daniel actually be thrown into the lion’s den rather than rescuing him beforehand?

God wants his people to know that he alone is their hope. God leads me through the Valley of Death so that I’ll trust in him alone. So that I’ll cling to his sufficient grace. So that I’ll give up the ludicrous charade that I can go it alone.

5. Because God’s Grace Is Sufficient, It Deepens My Trust In God

When things get really bad, I start playing out various scenarios in my head. For example, if my finances are tight, I start doing all sorts of calculations about when this bill will go through and whether I can make some additional money doing this activity and how to make everything work out alright in the end.

While there’s nothing inherently wrong with planning for the future, it’s easy for me to fall into the temptation of trusting in my own understanding rather than God’s sufficient grace.

I think this is why Proverbs exhorts us to trust in the Lord with all our hearts and not to lean on our own understanding. When I lean on my own understanding, I’m failing to trust God, whose power and ability to deliver are far beyond my understanding.

When I trust in the sufficiency of God’s grace, I truly can be anxious for nothing. When God does intervene and rescue me, it becomes abundantly clear to me that it was not due to my magnificent strategizing, but his glorious, sufficient grace.

Let Us Lean On God With All Our Weight

Charles Spurgeon said:

Let us lean on God with all our weight. Let us throw ourselves on his faithfulness as we do on our beds, bringing all our weariness to his dear rest.

The solution to weakness is not a stiff upper lip. It’s to lean on God with all our weight – to throw ourselves on the one whose power is made perfect in our weakness. Then, and only then, are we strong.

Helpful Resource:

Read Next:

Источник: //theblazingcenter.com/2018/04/grace-is-sufficient-html.html

Study 6 GRACE SUFFICIENT FOR EVERY NEED – Words of Life Ministries

DAYS OF HEAVEN UPON EARTH by Francis Dixon

(Scripture Portion: 2 Corinthians 12:1-10)

Two scripture passages form a foundation for the title of this study. The first is in 2 Corinthians 9:8, where Paul magnifies the grace of God; the second is in 2 Corinthians 12:1-10, which consists of a page from Paul’’s autobiography where he testifies to the way in which he has proved the grace of God.

We, as Christians, are always in need of grace –- not only ‘’dying grace’’, but grace to enable us to live to the praise and glory of God. We may experience that God’’s grace is sufficient for our every need, not only to enable us to get through difficult situations but to do so triumphantly! There are three main thoughts in 2 Corinthians 12:1-10:

1. THE SUFFERING PAUL EXPERIENCED

Every Christian experiences trial and testing. First, because this is the common experience of all members of the human race (Job 5:7); and second, because it is the common experience of all Christians (Philippians 1:29). In verse 7, the apostle tells us about a very hard trial – – “a thorn in my flesh””. Concerning this, notice:

1. The Nature of it. It was real, and not imaginary. It was not a recurring carnal desire, otherwise Paul would not have gloried in it (verse 9); nor does it seem ly that it was some fellow-believer or an unbeliever who was ‘’a thorn’’ in his side; nor was it remorse over his pre-conversion persecution of the saints. It was an infirmity, a weakness, a handicap. It is helpful to us that we do not know what that ‘thorn’ was, other than that it was physical and painful. Thus, we may apply the promise of verse 9 to our infirmities –- our deafness, weak digestion, aches and pains, timidity……
2. The Purpose of it. When unpleasant things happen to us we naturally ask ‘‘Why has God permitted this?’’ In Paul’s case the purpose was revealed to him (verse 7). He was particularly susceptible to the temptation of pride and conceit because of his very great gifts, and because of his amazing experience at Lystra fourteen years previously –- read verses 2-6. (Compare Acts 14:19-20). God gave Paul a ‘’thorn’’ to keep him humble. It was purposeful, as are all our trials and tribulations. Look up John 13:7, and take courage –- for the Lord is working out His purpose in your life.
3. The Source of it. Where did this ‘’thorn’’ come from? Verse 7 says it was ““a messenger of Satan””, but notice the word ‘’given’’. This ‘’thorn’’ was a gift! In Psalm 55:22 the word ‘’cares’’ may be translated ‘gift’. Now carefully compare Philippians 1:29. So we see that God’’s ‘‘thorns’’ are given to us by Him, though He sometimes allows Satan to deliver them –- as He did in the case of Job. This is a great mystery, but such is the teaching of scripture.
4. The Result of it. What effect did Paul’s ‘’thorn’’ have upon him? It drove him to prayer –- which reminds us of the Christian man who backslid, and who, when he was stricken with paralysis and came back to the Lord, was heard to say, ‘’Oh, God! I thank you for my dear paralysis!’’

2. THE SUPPLICATION PAUL MADE

In verse 8 we are told that Paul prayed about his infirmity. Do you pray about yours? Have you brought your case before the Great Physician? Look up James 5:13-15, and notice:-

1. Paul prayed definitely –- “…“…to take it away from me””. See what the Lord Jesus said in Luke 22:31-32.
2. Paul prayed earnestly –- for he tells us that he ““pleaded with the Lord…”…” probably with tears.
3. Paul prayed persistently –- for he tells us that he made his request “”three times”” –- and yet after praying three times the ‘’thorn’’ still remained!

But notice, his prayer was answered –- not in the way he expected, but in the way God wanted. When we pray, sometimes the Lord answers our prayers with a YES, sometimes with a NO, sometimes with a WAIT, and sometimes He answers quite DIFFERENTLY from what we expect –- as He did here. What a good thing it is that He does not always answer our prayers in the way we want!

3. THE SUFFICIENCY PAUL RECEIVED

Paul’s prayer was answered in the greatest possible way –- by a revelation of the Lord Himself! The greatest answer to prayer is not the thing we pray for –- but HIM! Study verse 9 carefully, and notice that with the revelation of Himself the Lord gave the promise of His sufficiency.

1. It was a Powerful Sufficiency –- for the Lord said, ““My grace……My power…”…”; and link these expressions up with Isaiah 40:28-31.
2. It was a Personal Sufficiency. Notice also in verse 9 –- ““He……me……My……you.”” That is very wonderful! –- grace sufficient for you in your need, and grace sufficient for me in my need!
3. It was a Present Sufficiency. The Lord said, ““My grace is sufficient…”…”, not ‘‘will be’’. The grace was already there for Paul to draw upon. All he had to do was to appropriate, to take, to receive, to experience, and to enjoy! Look up 2 Kings 6:15-17.
4. It was a Plentiful Sufficiency. The Lord said, ““My grace is enough…”…”; and as the need increases the grace will increase –- 2 Corinthians 9:8. In our Lord Jesus Christ is all the grace we need to make us the people He wants us to be, to keep us doing God’’s will and to enable us to finish our course with joy –- and all we have to do is to draw upon His plentiful supply!
5. It was a Practical Sufficiency. The grace of the Lord became operative in Paul’s weakness; therefore the ‘‘thorn’’ became the channel of the power of God, for His strength was made perfect in weakness! ‘‘And’,’ says the apostle Paul in the last part of verse 9, ‘‘it really works!’’ Dr Scroggie calls the last 19 words of verse 9, ‘‘The Song of the Sanctified Thorn’’!

May we all learn this great secret of the transfiguration of our troubles!

Источник: //www.wordsoflife.co.uk/bible-studies/study-6-grace-sufficient-for-every-need/