Grace For The Journey

  Did you know that when God looks at you He sees Jesus?  That’s right!  If you have accepted Jesus as your Savior and Lord, you are clothed in the righteousness of Christ . . . Paul declares this reality in Philippians 3:9, “… found in [Christ], not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.”  So, you see, in God’s eyes you are perfect in every way.

However, you are not yet what you will one day become!  God sees that too, because He is in the process of setting it up.

The angel of the Lord said to Gideon, “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor.”  (Judges 6:12)

When these words were spoken to Gideon, he was a laborer who was threshing wheat . . . not a mighty warrior doing battle with the Midianites.  However, in the sight of God, Gideon was more than he had currently become, and God was about to show him just how much more.  God was in the process of making Gideon a great warrior and leader, and the way God would arrange it, there could be no doubt who would be responsible for the victory and therefore who would get the glory.

Gideon started with 32,000 men who said they were ready for battle.  However, when the Lord completed the process of cutting Gideon’s army down to the right size, only 300 men remained.  From Gideon’s perspective there was just one problem with that result: Gideon’s company of 300 men was dwarfed by the 100,000-plus Midianite army they would be facing.  But what Gideon didn’t yet fully understand was that the strength of His army was not to be found in the size of his troops, but rather in the size of his God.

God kept less than one percent of Gideon’s original force in order to make it clear to everyone that victory would come as a result of God’s power and strength, not man’s.  As the Lord of hosts has declared elsewhere, when God works it is “’Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit’ says the Lord.” (Zechariah 4:6).  For the first time in his life, Gideon would have to trust fully and completely in God – not in himself – to become what God was calling him to become.

So . . . where in your life right now is God calling you to trust Him fully and completely? Where is He working to grow you into more than you’ve become?  God may not be calling you to be a mighty warrior on a battlefield; perhaps He wants to make you a mighty spouse . . . a mighty employee . . . a mighty minister of the Gospel.

You see, the Gospel frees you to walk by faith and not by sight.  God doesn’t care what your opposition looks like to you.  He is the One who is going to fight your battle and He is the One who will win the victory.  God is in the business of showing Himself supernaturally strong through the unbelievably weak . . . if we will but trust Him.

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The Journey

Rest and Rejoice in this eternal truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”