Bended Worship Ministry

This is the second and the last in this article – Grace at Work.

We said that God is at work and that as God is at work so also Grace is at work. There’s no other reason for all that you are and all that you will be in Christ but the very grace of God at work! For the believer who loves God and desires to be fruitful for His glory, there is a need to understand this, to take hold of this…the mighty working of this grace in one’s life. And here comes the realization of your faith. Faith is meant to take hold of the grace of God. ” Let us therefore approach the throne of grace…” his words says in Hebrew 4:16.

Everything will be Grace at work and everything will be faith taking hold of God’s grace. But why? I tell you this, there’ no one in the very sight of God but Christ Jesus and him alone…really! God’s grace at work is because of Christ. It is because of His incomparable love for His Son that we have grace. God’s grace is not just us being save in the salvation that we understand it…the remission of sins, of just being forgiven of sins. God’s grace is for us to ultimately become like Christ! Many of us stopped in their realization of just being forgiven of sins and so became mediocre, unfruitful. We fail to realize and even sometimes took for granted ( prevailing preeminence of the earthly) that God’s grace is for us to become like Christ. Romans.8:29; Gal.4:19. This is the very travailing of our God!

We gather materials, programs, we train, we equip, and stop at just what these words connotes…train, equip. And so there are many who are trained, equipped and yet without true realization of what ministry entails…The realization of Christ in those being trained and equipped. It’s is God’s object that Christ be formed in us. This is all about the filling of life-the life of Jesus and the eventual flowing of the same and so it goes on. Life to Life. So the question is not- Am I trained? Am I equipped? But- Is Christ life filling me? Am I growing in Christlikeness? Naturally there must be a flowing of that from others, from someone to me. And there goes true mentoring. The flowing of ones life to another. This is God’s work. This is Grace at work.

God rebuke the lies of the enemy! And so let loose the Children of God. Those who overcome this world, those who do not love their life in this world, those love God more than their worldly comfort, those who are becoming more and more fruitful for His glory, those who see themselves as citizen of the kingdom of God and not of this world in word and in deeds, those who waits expectantly for the realization of that City that is not made with man’s hand but by God’s. What more? Lovingly read God’s word, they are there. Those who truly grow, becoming more and more like Christ…growing in his knowledge, his grace, in his likeness. These are the ones useful. This is Grace at Work>

God is at work! Even now, and those who in faith, hope, and love waits for him knows this for sure. But for those who seems to be not realizing this wonderful truth, I say again, God is at work. He is at work in you, in me, and in all those who have truly received him…Savior and Lord.

If God is at work and it is true, what should we expect then? Yes, what should we expect but GRACE in all it’s sufficiency in Christ. When God is at work, it will always be Grace at Work. Here we will be assured, we will be encouraged…for how gracious is our God, how merciful, how loving, how faithful, and to top this all, he is the Almighty.

What is Grace? I will put it this way. There is nothing that I can do. There is nothing that we can do. There is nothing that you can do. In fact we are even nothing! Here is the beauty of God’s grace. Do you see? From the moment you believed ( that is also grace ) ’till you stand in his presence in his likeness it will be God at work…it will be grace at work. Here is the meaning of your faith. Yes! There is faith because there is grace. Your faith can only find it’s true meaning and it’s proper exercise in the grace of God. It is when faith takes hold of God’s grace that you become more and more what God has purposed you to be. ” The just shall live by faith.” Heb.10:38. ” It will be grace for grace. John.1:16.

Grace and your faith. here alone you realize what it is to be a child of God, what it is to be a servant of in Christ. You will realize yourself strong even when you are weak. You will see yourself fruitful, becoming more and more fruitful for his glory. You will know joy, you will see peace and you will be at rest…truly at rest. You will readily see Christ in others..brothers and sisters that is. You will have more and more expectation of what God is about to do. You will have visions of his of what his holy will entails. What? There is no end to this!

Yes..God is at work and it is Grace at work. Have faith and give glory to God. Here you will see you will be more than ready. Oh how God loves to do his will!

But, why sufferings? Why, believers in the course of their life on earth should go through suffering? The Bible says in Phil. 1:29 that it has been granted to us in Christ not just to believe in him but to suffer for him. And it is also written in 2Tim.2:12 that everyone who will pursue to live godly lives will be persecuted. Many Christians today have no clear conception of suffering as the word of God describes it. For most suffering is just about having a lack of things, being sick and many more naturally occurring happenings even to those have no Christ in their lives.

Now if God’s grace is sufficient and that the life of the believer is all about grace then we can say most confidently that in times of adversities God’s grace abounds. How can we know? By answering why…suffering? In here are some answers from the word of God…, in pondering we may all see that there is Grace in Sufferings.

1. It is for your sanctification. Listen to what Paul says in Romans 5:3-4…”but we also rejoice in suffering,” now look at that, rejoice in suffering? Why? Because as the succeeding words say, suffering produces …character. This speaks about our sanctification. Suffering is meant for sanctification! Sanctification means growing in God’s holiness. And holiness means usefulness and readiness for God’s work. A Christian who is ready to suffer is a Christian ready for God’s work. Isn’t that gracious?!
2. It is because Christ is in you. The enemy attacks relentlessly and you are perplexed. I say don’t. But why? It is because Christ is in you. In you alone is the potential for God’s glory, His praise. It is because of who you are in Christ…you are a child of God. Yes Satan will attack, he will persecute, he will hinder, but for those who love God and know his grace at work, they will rise up as true as the word’s of God in 2Cor.4:6-7…” For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.”
3. It is for you to know Christ. Oh Christ the suffering one! Suffering is one of the most powerful means God has given us to know Christ. The experience of suffering in the context of God’s work in you is your experience of Christ as well. Paul exclaiming in Phil.3:..” I want to know Christ…the fellowship of his suffering.” In suffering are the experience and the knowing of his love, the very reason he suffered in the first place. “For God so love the world…” There so much more to say about this but I would say that everything in the life of the Christian like in the first answer in part can only be produced with a good doze of suffering.

Yes there is grace in suffering. Here God is at work sanctifying you, giving you the grace that through you Christ will be testified upon, and bringing you more and more to know His Son. But this is not all for God meant it that in the process many more be blessed.” For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.” See? There’s grace always in suffering.

Are we to doubt God? Are we not to trust him who the Bible said become poor so that in him we may become rich? And this is where we always most surely falter. God’s grace by our lack of faith is always put in question! One moment we see ourselves as if gloriously witnessing to the truth of this ( that his grace is sufficient ) and another moment we find ourselves seemingly in denial of this wonderful truth.

To you believer like God’s word declare, everything will always be by GRACE. And God’s grace again as his word says so, will always be sufficient. Let us have a filling of his word…” For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love, he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will- to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of his grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.” Ephesians 1:4-8.

I think for the one who loves the Lord this need no further explanation.Yes, everything is by God’s grace alone and his grace will always be sufficient. Just think about your life, everything about your life…that’s what I mean by everything. From the moment you wake up and even us you sleep, the time that as if you have it all and the time that as if you have a want of it all, when everything seems so easy and when life seems to be nothing but hardship. Can you bend even a single knee if not by God’s grace? Can we say the Lord be praised if not by his grace?

God’s grace is not about things! He is not gracious enough because you seem to have it or as if ungracious when you seem to be not having it. ( as we usually find ourselves in ) Yes in this life you will always find yourself at times having it or at times wanting it, but if you can say with the apostle Paul, “ I know what it is to be in need, and I….I have learned the secret of being content…”, that’s God’s grace. Yes everything will always be by God’s grace and God’s grace will always be sufficient. God’s grace is the one we praise…Jesus Christ, the one who became poor so that in him we may be made rich. Brothers and sisters you are already rich.