Ever Increasing Grace
The early church prayed earnestly for grace and most of the letters of the New Testament ended with prayer for grace. While grace is a free gift for every child of God through Christ, it is however, the costliest thing in the universe because our Lord was crucified to purchase it for us. Defined severally as “God’s unmerited favor” or “God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense” or simply “Free gift”; no one can be saved from sin without it, no one makes heaven without it and no one can enjoy the Christian living without it.
Unlike in the early church, grace is not a popular topic in the churches today and this tells volume. We tend to like trophies, to feel like we earn something, e.g. that we prayed and fasted so hard before a miracle happened. However, even if we prayed and fast hard — and we should pray and fast very hard — we still owe it all to grace but then it takes real humility to admit grace.
Grace is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12: 9), i.e. grace flows unhindered in the areas of our weaknesses. Grace is hampered by sin because God will not give us bonus for disobedience (Rom. 6: 1, 2). There are different levels of grace; that is why it grows. The anointing of the Holy Spirit makes us helpful to the other person (Isa. 61: 1-3); grace is what makes our personal living pleasurable as it delivers on our laps benefit we can’t deserve. A look into the lives of Elijah and Elisha is sufficient for our purpose here.
Elisha asked for Elisha’s double portion of anointing and got it. He probably thought that would make him twice as greater but was wrong. It is noteworthy that Elijah performed sixteen miracles while Elisha performed thirty-one alive. When Elijah was done, he went to heaven in chariots of fire; the second man not to taste death. But how did Elisha, the man with the double portion of Elijah’s anointing leave? He fell sick and died, perhaps earlier because he carried the anointing for the 32nd miracle to the grave; the reason his bones later resurrected a corpse later (2 Kings 13: 14, 21). One would expect that twice the number of chariots that carried away his boss to come for him. Also, on the Mount of transfiguration, we saw Elijah and Moses with our Lord but not Elisha with them. So, when it comes to the anointing, Elisha had it twice as much, but when it comes to grace, he is too far from Elijah. Just imagine this prophet Elijah, ravens fed him, an angel fed him and a widow fed him; grace made his life pleasurable.
Every Christian must pray for grace; it is the source of God’s tender mercies, it makes God to be fond of us. However, we must stay away from sin, worship God intensely, be fond of Him and show grace to others. I challenge you to list all the grace passages of the Bible and copy their confession equivalents in this Bible and prophesy it to your life in a single flowing confession. Remember, when your strength fails then grace will see you through.
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