(Read Daniel 6:28)
This morning we continue our series, “Grace that is Simply Amazing” by continuing our mini-series entitled, “Grace Based Success (Prosperity)”. This week we are closing out our study of Daniel. Yesterday I shared a message entitled “Godly Success” about Daniel’s life. As I go back and read: “So Daniel was successful during the time Darius was king and when Cyrus the Persian was king”, I can’t help but think about improbable nature of Daniel’s success. The same can be said for the others we have studied in this series, like Joseph, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. With that in mind, today’s message is about improbable success.
So what does this mean to you today? A few things.
- The grace of God can open the door to improbable success. The word improbable means: not likely to be true; not to be expected under the circumstances. God can give you unlikely and unexpected opportunities by His amazing grace. Furthermore, God can then, in turn, give you the grace to make the most of the unlikely opportunity, making you an improbable success.
- Daniel’s success was a grace case. The world would say that what happened for Daniel was not supposed to happen. When Judah was conquered by Babylon and its inhabitants became slaves, no one would ever imagine that one of the Judean slaves would wind up in the 2nd most powerful position in the Kingdom, not just once, but four times. Daniel experienced grace based success under four different regimes. Did Daniel contribute to his success? Of course he did. He prayed, worked hard and did everything with a spirit of excellence. But make no mistake, the improbable success Daniel experienced does not happen without the grace of God.
- Joseph’s success was a grace case. The world would say that what happened for Joseph was not supposed to happen. Once Joseph was betrayed by his brothers and sold off as a slave, his life was supposed to be over, only to then experience favor with his master. But when he was hauled off from his master’s house to the royal prison, his life was supposed to be over again. He then experienced favor with Pharoah. The young man who was betrayed by his brothers because of his dream wound up seeing the dream realized by God’s amazing and unearned grace. Joseph became the second in command in the most powerful nation on the planet. His success was clearly improbable and it would have never happened without God’s grace.
- Rick and Isabella Piña’s success is a grace case. The type of success my wife and I have experienced is “not supposed to happen”. My wife came to this country as a teenager after being raised in abject poverty. Isabella did not have running water, electricity or any of the niceties most of us experience today. She lived with 9 people in a small shanty-style home the size of my current kitchen. Today she is about to retire from the United States Army as a Major, in charge of a state-of-the-art robotic surgery department. As the son of an immigrant single-parent, I was raised in Brooklyn on Welfare. The opportunities for me were few and far between. But today I will soon retire from the United States Army with the highest rank I could attain, in the highest position in my career field. This stuff is not supposed to happen. This type of success is improbable, but it happened BY THE GRACE OF GOD!
- Your success can be a grace case. Don’t dismiss the dream God placed in your heart just because the circumstances don’t lend themselves to your dream. God-given dreams require God-given opportunities; opportunities than only come by grace. So keep your heart open, your expectations high, your faith switch in the “ON” position, and your eyes on God. God can give you unlikely and unexpected opportunities by His amazing grace. He can open doors no man can close and bring you before men you would never meet without Him. Since nothing is impossible with God, making a way for improbable success for you is just ‘another day at the office’ for Him! Never stop believing. God can make you a grace case!
Closing Confession: Father, I thank You for teaching me about Your grace and my requirement to live by faith. The more I study Your grace, the more my faith is stirred up to believe You for supernatural, uncommon, and improbable success. You know me inside and out. You know my faults and the error of my ways. You also know the dreams You have placed in my heart. I sometimes compare the errors of my past and the frustration I have with my current flaws to the size of Your dreams for me and I don’t feel worthy. But Your Word is teaching me to get past my feelings. Jesus made me worthy. You did not make plans for me because I am perfect. You made plans for me by Your amazing grace. So I accept those plans. I open my heart to Your dreams. I lift my expectations for the impossible, improbable, unexpected and supernatural. When it’s all said and done the world will say that I am a grace case. The type of success I will experience in life is not supposed to happen for a person like me, but it shall happen! Not because I am so good, but because You are. Only because of Your grace! I declare this by faith. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
This is Today’s Word! Apply it and Prosper.
