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Grace is Always Enough

by Jerry Ousley  
10/09/2015 / Christian Living

We were raised in church. Mom saw to it that come Sunday morning, her children were with her in church. When I'd go and visit with my grandparents a few weeks in the summer, my grandfather was a pastor and so I was still in church. I was exposed to the gospel my entire life and, except for a couple of rebellious years in my early teens, my heart was tender towards God. For some reason it stuck in the back of my head that I had to be perfect. To quality as a Christian I could never do anything wrong or at least that's what I thought.

I'd make up my mind that I wasn't going to fight with my siblings, that I would always do the right thing and put others first. But then the service was over and I was thrust back into the real world and I'd get into it with one of my brothers or my sister sometimes before we got back home. For that reason, seldom was an altar call given that I wasn't found there praying, begging forgiveness and asking God to make me good. I felt an overwhelming compulsion to be at the altar praying when the call was made. It might have been somewhat of overkill but at least it kept my knees tough.

Later in life I learned about God's grace. It is truly an amazing thing. We aren't required to start all over every time we slip, and if you're like me that's a lot more often than I'd like to admit. We all fail God. We don't have to. Slipping up isn't something that's required of the human race. We lose our temper or someone offends us and then before we know it we've reacted in a negative way. God knows that this is going to happen sooner or later (I prefer later but most of the time it takes place sooner).

Paul told us in 2 Corinthians 12 that he had been given a messenger of the devil to buffet him, to keep him humble so that his ego wasn't inflated due to all the revelations given him by the Lord. Some feel like it was a sickness, others that it was his bad eyesight. We aren't told exactly what it was. Perhaps it was an anger issue or something else. In fact it isn't really important what it was, we only think we need to know because we are nosey. The great apostle chose not to reveal what it was but the point is that God allowed the devil to tempt him with something that constantly reminded him that he was in need of the grace of God.

If we are sorely tempted with a sin and we yield to it from time to time it doesn't mean that we weren't cut out to be a Christian or that we can't live up to the life of a believer. The fact is that if most Christians who seem they've got it all together would be honest there's something there that is a weakness to them. It doesn't have to be what we might consider to be a big thing because sins have no size in the eyes of God sin is sin.

It could be a messenger of the devil that God is using to keep us in check. Now don't go off and tell everyone that Jerry Ousley says it's okay to sin. That isn't what I'm saying at all. What I am saying is that God's grace, given to us freely through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ, is enough to get us through. If we overcome a temptation this time that's great. But it doesn't mean that we will always overcome because the devil doesn't always come through the front door. Sometimes he sneaks around to the back door and sometimes he'll find an open window to crawl through. The very thought of us being perfect all the time is a set up for failure.

Regardless what our weakness may be we can claim the grace of God over it. Sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. But with the grace of God we can always win. We win because we can confess and repent to the Lord. I don't care if we have to repent a thousand times a day we need to be quick to do it. When we do then we are flooded with God's grace. We will feel like we don't deserve it, and guess what we don't. But that's the great thing about His grace, it's a gift. If we deserved it then it wouldn't be a gift. Always remember that God's grace is enough.

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

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