My Grace is Sufficient for Thee

“My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness”. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

Grace – Sometimes and whenever sleep evades me until the light of dawn overcomes the darkness of night, I often lie in my bed pondering some of the things God says in his eternal Word. I do not say this lightly but it often seems to resemble a Jacobian wrestling with God when He told Israel, “thou [hast] power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.” (Genesis 32:28) The word for “prevail” is yâkôl” and literally means “to overcome.”

Does mortal man have the means to overcome God? Perish the thought. To prevail in wrestling with God relates to the overcoming of your own fears and the many questions that tend to nibble at your mind. Saints who do not have questions will never receive answers. Whenever the disciples failed to understand some of the things Jesus taught in parables, they privately went to Him and asked Him outright what He meant.

It is always best and more appropriate to receive and acknowledge what He says in his Word by faith, simply because He says it. However, when the rubber meets the road and you begin to experience first-hand what up to now you have seen others suffering, the questions begin to nibble a little deeper into your mind. Paul seems to have had the same problem when he thrice beseeched God to remove the thorn in his flesh and God succinctly told him “My grace is sufficient for thee.”

When saints who have been fairly healthy hear their doctor’s solemn and feared statement, “Sir/Madame you have cancer and immediately need treatment,” or the unbearable pains in your back begin to hamper your once youthful gait, or tinnitus (a form of deafness) slowly but surely silences the early morning birds’ songs, the thrice prayed prayer suddenly becomes a multi-prayed prayer, “Oh God, be merciful unto me and please remove this thorn in my flesh.” I suppose an often repeated prayer is not wrong. However, we will never find the peace and rest we so desperately need, and the victory in our circumstances until we enter into the holiest of holies in heaven (Hebrews 10:19-22). For, it is there in our wrestling bout with God where we are taken away from ourselves back to the cross.

What makes God grace sufficient? Apart from the infallible truth that He is Almighty God and capable of making “sufficient” to be really “sufficient,” it is only the cross of His Son, Jesus Christ, that is able to make his grace sufficient for whatever thorns we may have in our flesh.

For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you. (2 Corinthians 13:4).

His magnanimously perfect finished work on the cross is what makes God’s grace sufficient and He will always gently take us back to that old rugged cross where He was made sin and a curse for us. “Therefore,” says Paul . . . (Please take careful note all you health, wealth and prosperity cultists).

I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong. (2 Corinthians 12:10).

Difficult? Let’s rather say it’s not so easy but by the grace of God and a continued crucified life in the Lord, we may and shall prevail so that his strength may be made perfect in our weaknesses.

Moreover, our weaknesses wrought by the thorns in our flesh teach us to pray with long sufferable supplications,

Even so, come [quickly], Lord Jesus. (Revelation 22:20).