When Grace isn’t Enough

I recently had a teenager express to me something we’ve probably all felt, but perhaps feared to verbalize.
“God gives them more grace!” She said. To which I was honest, “God does do that sometimes,” I replied. Our human obsession with “fairness” cries out in opposition to this concept. How could a fair God with an endless supply of divine enablement, give an abundance to one an individual, and hide Himself from another? We don’t like what we don’t understand, but it’s a Biblical truth. James tells us very simply.
James 4:6
But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

Here’s the simple reality, when I’m missing out on the beautiful, transformational, sustaining grace of Jesus, it’s because I’ve rejected grace at the expense of something else my flesh tells me I need. A certain way to lose the battle and crown myself to the throne of my life, is to substitute God’s grace with a temporal toy.

To win battles for God’s Kingdom, I must throw myself at the feet of the Captain, who won my war by grace; and fall on the sword of self. If I go into the battle without God’s grace to save and sustain me, I will come from the battle with wounds of doubt, pride, and debilitating guilt. I am not enough, and never will be. His grace is enough, and victory is found in that grace, which has already won my soul.

It’s never that grace isn’t enough; it’s always that I’m not enough. Embracing grace is as easy as humbling self, and when we do, victory is as easy as giving it to God. Nothing is too hard for Him, not even raising dead people to walk, and to win.

God, we need grace. Help us to embrace the grace of the gospel that you bought us with, and is now ours!

By Him and Through Him,
KG