Today we continue our series “God is faithful!” The Lord led me to 2 Corinthians 4. In this passage, we are looking at what it looks like to believe God is faithful. Because of God’s faithfulness towards us, we can withstand and overcome anything!
(2 Corinthians 4:1, 7-13, 16-18 TPT)
1 Now, it’s because of God’s mercy that we have been entrusted with the privilege of this new covenant ministry. And we will not quit or faint with weariness.
7 We are like common clay jars that carry this glorious treasure within, so that this immeasurable power will be seen as God’s, not ours.
8 Though we experience every kind of pressure, we’re not crushed. At times we don’t know what to do, but quitting is not an option.
9 We are persecuted by others, but God has not forsaken us. We may be knocked down, but not out.
10 We continually share in the death of Jesus in our own bodies so that the resurrection life of Jesus will be revealed through our humanity.
11 We consider living to mean that we are constantly being handed over to death for Jesus’ sake so that the life of Jesus will be revealed through our humanity.
12 So, then, death is at work in us but it releases life in you.
13 We have the same Spirit of faith that is described in the Scriptures when it says, “First I believed, then I spoke in faith.” So we also first believe then speak in faith.
16 So no wonder we don’t give up. For even though our outer person gradually wears out, our inner being is renewed every single day.
17 We view our slight, short-lived troubles in the light of eternity. We see our difficulties as the substance that produces for us an eternal, weighty glory far beyond all comparison,
18 because we don’t focus our attention on what is seen but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but the unseen realm is eternal.
We have also been looking at Ephesians 3. Let’s go back to it again today.
(Ephesians 3:16-20 TPT)
16 And I pray that he would unveil within you the unlimited riches of his glory and favor until supernatural strength floods your innermost being with his divine might and explosive power.
17 Then, by constantly using your faith, the life of Christ will be released deep inside you, and the resting place of his love will become the very source and root of your life.
18–19 Then you will be empowered to discover what every holy one experiences—the great magnitude of the astonishing love of Christ in all its dimensions. How deeply intimate and far-reaching is his love! How enduring and inclusive it is! Endless love beyond measurement that transcends our understanding—this extravagant love pours into you until you are filled to overflowing with the fullness of God!
20 Never doubt God’s mighty power to work in you and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination! He will outdo them all, for his miraculous power constantly energizes you.
So what does this mean to you today? A few things.
1. To comprehend the deepness of God’s love, you must embrace the reality of God’s grace.
a) Your human performance could never measure up to the size of God’s divine call on your life.
— The reason why I keep driving home the love and grace of God is because without understanding both of these things, you will inevitably live beneath God’s best.
— If you think you have to perform for God to bless you, you will always live beneath God’s best because your performance will never be good enough to match God’s goodness and grace towards you.
— On your own, you could never be good enough to earn what God called you to do. But Jesus was good enough FOR you.
b) Grace does not come BY works; it comes FOR work.
— God called you by grace despite your flaws, despite your bad actions, and He then gives you the grace to perform good actions, actions that are pleasing in His sight, actions you could never do without Him.
— You cannot work FOR grace, but you will be able to perform everything God has called you to do BY grace.
— Because God loves you with unconditional love, He showers you with His grace to do what you could never do without Him.
— If you open your heart to God’s love and grace, you will be able to expand your capacity to believe God to the point where you SEE yourself doing what He called you to do. At that point, you will have the faith to STEP OUT and actually attempt it. When you do, your faith will tap into God’s grace. God’s grace will kick in where your human ability runs out, and you will experience the supernatural. This is how God uses you on this planet to perform His will, but it all starts with God’s love. If you don’t believe God loves you, you will never start the process. Faith works by love. When you know you are loved, and you launch out in faith, your faith will tap into God’s grace, and God will do, through you, what you could never do without Him!
c) God is looking for you to open your heart to His Great Grace in this season.
— All year, I have been telling you that God wants you to LEVEL UP! At the end of every message, I have you to say, “GREATER IS COMING FOR ME!” I believe this with all my heart. I believe this is what heaven is saying. But on earth, we will not receive what heaven is releasing if we don’t have these two mindsets: 1) God loves me, and 2) God wants to bless me because He is good, not because I am.
— You cannot work FOR your divine assignment; you just yield to it because you know God loves you and you trust Him. Once you yield to it and embrace it by God’s grace, you are in a position to launch out in faith, and God’s best will be manifested in your life.
*** May the grace of God flow in your life in this season like never before! And may it flow because you are convinced God loves you!
2. It takes the Holy Spirit to comprehend how high, wide, and deep God’s love is.
— God’s love for you is far deeper than your human capacity to comprehend. Love is something humans practice. God doesn’t practice love; He IS love. It takes the Holy Spirit for us to get a revelation of God’s love.
— God’s love for you is truly unconditional. Your love for God was birthed out of the good things He has done for you. But His love for you was birthed out of His goodness and grace, and it has nothing to do with what you do for Him. God started loving you before the world began.
— God is not mad at you. He is not out to get you. If God wanted to get you, there would be no place you could hide. He is seeking you out but not to hurt you. He is chasing after you, to bless you, because He loves you.
— You will have a hard time believing and receiving all the good things God wants to do in, with, and through you by grace if you fail to embrace His love. And you to do so, you must open your heart to the leading of the Holy Spirit.
— What God wants to do for you by grace (completely unmerited, unearned, and undeserved) is almost too good believe, but you can believe it when you come to the understanding that God wants to bless you simply because He loves you.
— When you accept and believe the love of God by the Holy Spirit, your faith walk will go to an entirely new level. Most believers attempt to live by faith based on their perception of how good they are being towards God. Meaning, that if they feel like they are doing pretty good, then God is going to answer their prayers and respond to their faith. However, that is not the message of the New Testament at all. That is performance-based religion and not the grace-based relationship God wants to have with you.
— When you understand the message of the New Testament, you embrace the grace of God because God loves you. When you are convinced God loves you, your faith will be strong because your faith will be rooted in God’s love and His grace towards you and not in your goodness towards Him! At this point, Paul says, “the resting place of his love will become the very source and root of your life.”
*** I pray you get delivered from performance-based religion, so you can fully embrace the love and grace of God!
Declaration of Faith:
Father, this is a season of LEVELING UP for me. I LEVEL UP by resting in Your love. You love me with an everlasting love. You want to use me (by grace and because You love me) to accomplish all You called me to do from the foundations of the world. There was a time when I could not accept Your best because I kept factoring in my performance. My performance never measured up to the size of the call on my life. But those measuring days are over. I know I am not good enough, but Jesus was good enough for me. I know I am not worthy, but Jesus was worthy for me. So I simply accept Your assignment by grace, and I pursue it by faith. I open my heart to receive what You have already provided. Living this way, You empower me to do what I have never done without You, to see what I have never seen, to impact lives I have never touched, and to experience the best in every area of my life. Not because I’m so good, but because You’re so good! Only because of Your amazing grace! This is how I know GREATER IS COMING FOR ME! I declare this by faith. In Jesus’ name, Amen!
This is Today’s Word! Apply it and Prosper.
