Today we continue our series entitled, “Pursuing Grace-Based Success!”
Here are our foundational scriptures:
(Ephesians 2:8-10 ERV)
8 I mean that you have been saved by grace because you believed. You did not save yourselves; it was a gift from God.
9 You are not saved by the things you have done, so there is nothing to boast about.
10 God has made us what we are. In Christ Jesus, God made us new people so that we would spend our lives doing the good things he had already planned for us to do.
(1 Corinthians 1:30,31 NLT)
30 God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin.
31 Therefore, as the Scriptures say, “If you want to boast, boast only about the Lord.”
(2 Timothy 1:9 NKJV)
Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.
Yesterday we also looked at Philippians 2:13. Let’s do that again today.
(Phil 2:13 NLT)
For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.
(Phil 2:13 ERV)
Yes, it is God who is working in you. He helps you want to do what pleases him, and he gives you the power to do it.
So what does this mean for you today? I will do my best to break down Phillipians 2:13 and the overall topic for today. I don’t just like to make statements like, “God gives you the desire and the power,” and then not explain them. God has gifted/graced me to teach. So teach I will. Let’s get into it.
1. God gives you the DESIRE to do what He PLANNED for you to do from the foundations of the world.
I dealt with this point yesterday, but I will elaborate further today.
(Ecc 3:11 AMPC)
He [God] has made everything beautiful in its time. He also has planted eternity in men’s hearts and minds [a divinely implanted sense of a purpose working through the ages which nothing under the sun but God alone can satisfy], yet so that men cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
— You were born for God’s specific and intended purpose. God sent you to this planet at just the right time to do what He planned for you to do before the world began.
— When you were born, you were born ignorant of the fact that you were destined and unaware of God’s plans. As a result, you lived your life as a mere human, pursuing what you thought was right, and your mindset was shaped by your environment, education, experiences, and credible authority figures.
— When you came into the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, and you were Born-Again, you were filled with God’s Spirit. At this point, the Holy Spirit began to reveal TO you what was prepared FOR you but concealed FROM you.
— While you were living your life within the continuum of time, God, who is outside of time, already knew the plans He made for you. These plans are on display, in His heart, in eternity. The text teaches us that God takes things from eternity (things that have not happened yet, but things He clearly planned for your future) and implants them in your HEART and MIND in time. When He does, these things give you a DIVINELY and INTERNALLY implanted SENSE OF PURPOSE. With this SENSE OF PURPOSE implanted in your heart and mind, the text teaches that you will never be satisfied until you experience what God implanted.
— When you have an INTERNALLY implanted SENSE OF PURPOSE, placed there by the Holy Spirit, you live your life from the inside out. You meditate and medicate on what God revealed to you in your heart to the point where it becomes the driving force of your life!
— You go into your prayer closet, and you SEE things that God puts on display for you. These are things that He planned. These are things that are clear in eternity. These are things that have not happened yet, in time, on the earth. But when you leave your prayer closet, you have to deal with the present-day realities of this world. You are then posed with a choice. You can live by what you SEE with your natural eyes, which will mean that you live like a mere human (like those who are not filled with God’s Spirit). Or you can choose to believe what God revealed and live by faith. To live by faith, the UNSEEN has to become MORE REAL to you than the SEEN.
— Once you know who you are and what God has called you to do, and once you are clear about the divinely implanted SENSE OF PURPOSE that God deposited down in your heart and mind, then nothing else matters! Your only desire is what God desires for you. You think about God’s purpose and plan for your life so much that you freely give up all the other plans you had for your life. Those plans don’t seem important to you anymore because all you want is what God wants for you. This is how we are supposed to live. This is the life of faith, and it is rooted in God’s grace.
— When your single desire in life is to please God and only to pursue what He planned, you will experience God’s favor in a way you never have before. You will find that God’s favor will go before you like a shield (Psalm 5:12) because you are pursuing what God desires for your life.
— I pray you get to the point where your only desire is what God desires for you becuase this series is about success, and this is the ONLY way you will become a success in God’s eyes!
2. Along with the DESIRE, God gives you the POWER to do what He called you to do.
Not only does God give you the desire to want what He wants for you, but He also gives you the power to do it! This is important because if God gave you a desire for something you can never accomplish, He would be setting you up for failure. You would spend your entire life pursuing something you can never bring to pass, you would spend your life dreaming dreams that never get manifested, and you would die unfilled. Thankfully, God will never treat us that way.
The Bible says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life” (Proverbs 13:12 NLT).
— I know what it is like to want something so bad that it is the only thing you think about. I know know what it is like to have that desire ONLY BECAUSE God gave you the desire for it. When you have something you desire that you believe God placed in your heart, and you wait for it for years, the Bible teaches us to wait in faith, with everlasting hope, believing that God will do what He said He would do in our lives. However, if you ever get to the point where you don’t believe it is going to happen, and you have been waiting and waiting, your heart can get sick. This is where believers delve into despair, disappointment, discouragement, and even depression.
— This is why you must discern the voice of the Holy Spirit. When you are waiting on God for something He clearly said, then He is not a man, He cannot lie, and He will surely bring it to pass, no matter how impossible it seems.
— I am thankful that God gives us the DESIRE and the POWER. If He only gave us the desire, we would live our lives with a hunger and thirst for things that would never come to pass, and we would die unfulfilled, unsatisfied, and incomplete. But believe me, God loves you too much to do you that way. He gives you the desire to do things you could never do without Him, and then, when you build up the faith and the audacity to pursue it (believing what God believes about you), God steps in and empowers you to perform His will. Remember Philippians 2:13, “Yes, it is God who is working in you. He helps you want to do what pleases him, and He gives you the power to do it.”
— When you embrace the grace to become the man/woman you are called to be, you will work harder than you have ever worked in your life, but it won’t be you doing it. It will be the Lord working in you, giving you the words and performing the work by His grace and for His glory! This is #TheGraceLife!
3. The grace of God is truly amazing.
Let’s think about God’s amazing grace for a minute. Today we are talking about the fact that God gives us the “WANT TO” and the “CAN DO.” He gives us both by grace.
— God loves you so much that not only did He make plans for you before the world began, but He works with you to WANT what WANTS for you!
— God puts the desire in your heart to crave and thirst after the things He planned for you from the foundations of the world, and He then gives you the empowerment to do what you could never do without him. Both of these show the grace of God. This is truly God’s heart and His unmerited favor.
— If God didn’t work on us to give us the desire for the things He desires for us, then we would spend our lives pursuing our own passions and desires. Further, if He didn’t give us the power to do what He called us to do, then, of course, we would be helpless because God calls us to do things that we cannot do without Him. Thankfully, by His amazing grace, God gives us both the desire and the power. This is how we become successful in this world and in the world to come.
*** This is all a manifestation of God’s unearned grace!
That’s enough for today.
Declaration of Faith:
Father, I thank You for teaching me about grace-based success.
You want me to want what You want for me.
You love me so much that You placed a desire in my heart to desire what You desire for me!
You gave me the desires of my heart, to the point where my desires are Your desires.
Now my only desire in life is to do what You have called me to do. I am on this planet for Your plans and purposes. I live to bring glory to Your name. I have no other desire. I have no ulterior motive. I am not my own. I was bought with a price, and that price was the Blood of Your Son, Jesus the Christ, my Lord.
I live for You and You alone! My life is ALL ABOUT YOU!
You implated Your desires in my heart and mind, and I now have a divinely implanted sense of purpose. I will never be satisfied until I complete it.
You gave me the desire, and You gave me the power to do it. You gave me all of this by Your amazing grace. Therefore, 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.
