What Makes God, God? His Grace: 2 Corinthians 12:9
2 Corinthians 12:9 “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.”
Through what lens do you view God? Do you view God through a lens of law or grace? All of us respond to God from a sense of obligation to perform or freedom to live life trusting in His work and not our own.
I grew up in the church. I was born, raised, ministered in, and will probably die in the church. And yet I have lived with the tireless effort to please God because the church has conditioned me to believe that while I was saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9), I needed to live a certain way, believe the right things, witness to people as often as possible, earn the notches in my belt, espouse politically conservative issues to keep the approval of God and maintain my status in His church. A moral fall, a shift in political viewpoints, or a lack of zeal for the gospel could raise questions to the authenticity of my faith. Why is this? Because we tend to view God as One who is waiting to find a reason to disqualify those who do not fit our preconceived notions of what makes God approve of us.
However, grace represents God's work in us and not our work for God. I believe this key verse (2 Corinthians 12:9) lies at the center of our understanding of God and His grace. Spend a few moments meditating on this verse.
Picture note: Grace represents the all-sufficient power of God to continue perfecting us despite our imperfections.
The picture above tells us a lot about grace. First, grace represents God's self-initiating choice to favor us. That means we cannot convince Him to love us. We cannot manipulate God to favor us. He decides to lavish His kindness on us apart from any influence from us. His grace influences us and not the other way around. See Romans 11:5-6 for Paul's description of grace: "So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace." We can enjoy this favor with God in the body, mind, and spirit simply because He chose us (Ephesians 1:4) by His own initiative before the foundation of the world.
Second, the ability to live our physical lives originates from God's power (dunamis). Grace enables us to live in moment-by-moment awareness of His Presence despite what is going on in our everyday lives. The Apostle Paul kept a vision of Christ before Him (Philippians 1:21) even though his story was riddled with all kinds of trouble (2 Corinthians 11:23-29). Only by God's powerful grace can we live in the freedom He gives us when our bodies are vexed with the troubles and perils of life.
Next, the grace of God makes Him all you need. The all-sufficient (arkeo) nature of God's grace derives its meaning from contentment or satisfaction. Our passion will always determine our obsessions. Misguided thinking will almost always lead to wrong behavior. This is why Proverbs 23:7 teaches that as a man "thinketh in his heart, so is he" (KJV). Grace illustrates why God is always enough. There is nothing that anything else in this life could ever give you that grace has not already provided. Christ is your life. He is your satisfaction. He is the reason why Paul could say he had found contentment with plenty or lack (Philippians 4:10-13). He had the grace demonstrated through Jesus so he had all that was sufficient for him.
God perfects (teleo) His grace in us, meaning that we are complete in His eyes because of His grace. Sin leaves us incomplete, always lacking what only God can fill. God does not see our weaknesses, though. He sees His grace. He does not see our sins. He sees His Son, the personification of His grace. He holds no recollection of our transgressions. His perspective of us is framed, shaped, and formed by the vicarious death of His Son, our Savior Jesus Christ. There is nothing more that God can do for us that He has not already done in Christ. We are complete in our spirit because of Grace.
Finally, here is the most powerful truth that undergirds grace. The all-sufficient, perfecting, and powerful kindness of God will always be received from within our position of weakness. Grace finds its rightful place in those who are fully aware that they lack what God requires. No matter how much good we could accomplish in the name of Jesus we could never do enough; otherwise grace would no longer be grace. And so because of grace we will always possess an acute self-awareness of our desperate need, but grace will always lead us to the all-sufficient work of Christ to fill that need.
Living under the influence of grace means we live cognizant of God's standards of holiness, but fully aware of our inability to live up to them, and therefore completely dependent on His work to make us acceptable in every way. You will never find anyone marked by artificial notions of perfection who fully experiences the freedom of living under the influence of grace. Freedom as Paul described in Galatians 5:1 can only be experienced from an overwhelming sense of insufficiency. Grace can be known only from a place of need. It is from our weakness that we can know the amazing grace of God.
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