Grace!

II Corinthians 12:9
Each time He said, "My grace is all you need. My POWER works best in weakness." So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the POWER of Christ can work through me.

GRACE: The empowering presence of God in my life, that enables me to be who God created me to be, and to do what God has called me to do.

I know that the focus of this blog is to write about addiction and recovery, but lets get honest. Addiction and recovery is just another flavor of sin. All sin is nothing more than rebellion against God. Rebellion can take all manner of forms. It can be full blow dog cussing God, telling Him He has no business trying to run your life.....
Or it can be as subtle as a silent unbelief that keeps you from accepting anything God offers. In other words, sin is sin. Last time I checked, we all are suffering from this condition. Left unchecked, the sin nature will follow you to the grave and beyond. It will continue to lie to you about your own spiritual ability. It will twist and warp the truth of God into a mental solution that only sounds right to you. It will use words like "Fairy tale"...."God would not do this"...etc....etc..In other words, it will create, in your mind, false answers to every bit of truth that God brings to you. Only the grace of God can break through this fortress of mental deception. Only the grace of God can empower you to move beyond this dangerous game that we play with our souls.

Recognizing our weaknesses puts us in a place where we can receive this empowering Grace from God. In another verse, Paul states that God's Power if manifested when he (Paul) is at his weakest point. We're not talking about a physical weakness. It's all about a heart or spiritual weakness that realizes only God has the power to impart to us the ability to go through whatever we are facing.

Paul writes in Philippians 4:12- "I have learned the secret of living in every situation (that I fact)". Notice what Paul said..."I have learned." That means that this incredible man who may be the most learned individual ever to receive this grace...had to learn about it. God taught...Paul learned. God gave...Paul accepted. I guess that means the key to following Jesus is to be teachable. Paul goes on to write, "I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me." What falls under "All"....everything. Good situations...bad situation. Good circumstances...bad circumstances. No matter what Paul was facing, he could meet it head on and move through it because Paul realized that it was Jesus who was imputing power and ability to Him. Well, guess what? Nothing has changed. Certainly not Jesus. He will do today for you, what He did years ago for Paul. 

So, like Paul, I will close today's posting with the last verse of Philippians 4.
"May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit."

God on you...
mbb