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.
For the past few days, we have been looking at Philippians 2:13. I have been driving home the fact that God gives us both the desire and the power to do what He has called us to do. I like to teach by both precept and example. So today, we will look at some examples.
(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? A few things.
1. God gave Abraham the desire and the power.
Abram was an idol worshipper who lived in Ur of the Chaldeans. He did nothing to earn to deserve the divine call of God on his life. God made plans for Abram (later Abraham), revealing those plans to him when he was 75 years old.
Although Abram was already 75, God revealed that He would make his name great and bless all the families of the earth through him. For this to happen, God had to help Abram develop a desire for the things He desired for his life. God did. Over time, God’s call became the driving force behind all Abram did.
24 years after accepting the call, Abram (then Abraham) did not have any of the promised children with his wife, Sarah. Abraham and Sarah had the desire, but they were past childbearing age, and Sarah had never been able to conceive. This is where God gave them the power. When Abraham was about 100 years old, and his wife was 90 years old, they had Isaac, the promised child, and the legacy was manifested through him. God gave them the desire, and they lived with the desire, but if God had not given them the power, they would have died unfilled. Thank God for both!
2. God gave Gideon the desire and the power.
Gideon was a scared farmer during a time when Israel was under siege. He had low self-esteem. He saw himself as the weakest man from the weakest clan in all of Israel. But God already had plans for Gideon. God called him to lead a revolution against the occupying force. God told Gideon that he was a “mighty man of valor.” Gideon could not see it at first. Gideon did not see himself as a warrior, and he had no desire to fight. God had to work with Gideon to build up the DESIRE to fight and lead men in battle, and He then gave Gideon the power to do it.
Once Gideon had the desire from God, he would certainly need the power from God because God was going to lead Gideon into one of the most lopsided victories in all of combat history. Gideon led 300 men against about 135,000 men, and since God was with Gideon, it was not even a fair fight. Thank God for giving us both the desire and the power!
3. God gave Peter and Paul the desire and the power.
God called Paul, the most educated Apostle in the Law of Moses, to preach the Gospel to Gentiles who knew nothing about the Law. God called Peter, an uneducated man who was a fisherman by trade, to preach the Gospel to the most learned men of his time. Let’s talk about it.
Peter was raised as Simon. By the time he met Jesus, he was known as Simon the Fisherman. He was an Israelite who ran a fishing business. He was not part of the Jewish religious elite. He was not educated in The Law. He was not part of the Jewish religious crowd. What he was was a blue-collar, hard-working entrepreneur. God called this man to lead the New Testament church. First, God had to build a desire in Peter’s heart to fish for men instead of fish. Once he did, God had to grace Peter to get it done. Peter was a hothead. He often spoke ‘out of turn,’ and when he opened his mouth, he often said the wrong things. So God had to work with Peter, just like He often has to work with us.
Paul was raised as Saul of Tarsus. He was groomed to be part of the Jewish religious elite from a young age. He studied under Israel’s greatest teacher of the Law at the time, Gamaliel. Pharisees of the Pharisees mentored him. Once he was old enough, he fought against the cause of Christ. He had Christians imprisoned, stoned, burned at the stake, and eaten alive by wild animals in coliseums. He was part of the “who’s who” within the Jewish community. This is the man God chose to preach the Gospel to non-Jews and to write half the New Testament. Obviously, God had to build a desire in his heart to do so because Paul had spent his entire life preparing for something else. This series is about success, and you will never be a success [in God’s eyes] at something you are not called to do. So God had to work with Paul to WANT TO minister to the Gentiles since he had spent his entire life staying away from them.
Peter did not know anything about the educated crowd, and God called him to minister to them. Paul had spent his entire life preparing to be part of the educated Jewish crowd, and God called him to minister to people who could care less about The Law of Moses. In both cases, God had to give them the desire (first) and the power to do what He was calling them to do.
4. God gives you the desire and the power by His grace.
I gave you four examples today (Abraham, Gideon, Peter, and Paul). Now let’s talk about you!
— God made plans for you before the world began. He made those plans by His unearned grace. You did nothing to earn them, and you can do nothing to disqualify yourself from them. Once you open your heart to God’s best, He will give you both the desire and the power to do what He birthed you to do.
This sounds great, but let’s talk about the process for a minute:
— When you come to God and accept Jesus as Lord, once the euphoria wears off, you are left with tough decisions. You had spent your entire life, to that point, becoming the man/woman you had become. And then Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, says to you what He said to a crowd. He says, “If you want to become my disciple (my follower), you must stop thinking about yourself and what you want. You must be willing to carry the cross that is given to you for following me. If you try to hold on to your old life, you will lose it. But if you willingly give up your life for me and for the gospel, you will save it.” (Mark 8:34,35). What do we do at that point? Well, many believers accept what Jesus said. They pick up their personal cross, they die to self, and they discover the life God planned for them before the world began. Some, however, are too selfish to do so, even after being Born-Again. So they spent the rest of their lives dibbling and dabbling in the things of God and the things of this world. They spend their lives “straddling the fence” between the Holy Spirit and the flesh. They are too spiritual to fully embrace the world of sin. But they are also too carnal to fully embrace the call of God on their lives. Please don’t let this be you. You cannot maximize your purpose and potential until you die to self and get out of the way!
— If you get Today’s Word, then I assume you want to accept God’s call. Just as long as you don’t fight the Holy Spirit, He will help you build up a DESIRE (a PASSION) for the things God DESIRES for you. Once you are there, then you can tap into the grace (or power) to do it!
Said another way, the best idea you can ever have is to live your life based on God’s idea for you. The goal is to get to the point where you believe what God believes about you. That is step 1 (the desire). Once you get there, you can tap into God’s grace, which is step 2 (the power). With the desire and the power, God will flow through you, and you will do things you never imagined you would do. God imagined these things in His heart, FOR YOU, before the world began! What I just described for you is #TheGraceLife.
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 want me to believe what You believe about me.
I declare that I do. I build up the desire to desire what You planned for me before the world began!
Along with the PASSION, You also give me the POWER, Father, to do what You reveal.
You implant Your purpose in my heart. This divine purpose becomes the underlying motivation for my entire life. I will never be satisfied until I become what You revealed.
But what You implanted in my heart is TOO BIG for me. I cannot do it without You. So, along with the DESIRE, You give me the POWER to do it! This power is called GRACE!
I yield to You in all things and in every way. I die to myself so much that I have even died to my limits. My life is all about You! You are free to do, through me, what You desire. 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.
