Living Within God’s Grace

There are many voices ‘out there’ vying for our attention, hoping we’ll conform to their standards.  Those voices could be divided into 3 basic categories; God, the devil and ourselves.  Unless we’re teachable and have great mentors as sounding boards, or a possess a strong God-centered internal ‘plumbline’, we could be easily confused or duped.

And ‘old fashioned’ character is still a virtue.  It will help to hold a person from being 1)naively impetuous… or from being 2)fearfully indecisive when these voices present themselves.  Both unbridled actions can derail us.  

Many people, without a God-centered ‘plumbline’, find themselves chasing ‘the three G’s’ – girls, gold and glory.  

For all that is in the world, the 1)lust of the flesh and the 2)lust of the eyes and the 3)boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. – (I John 2:16)

This leads to dissipation or exhaustion.  Anything that is not supported by God’s grace will automatically deplete us, because it requires our own strength to attain it.  

Jesus learned this truth and He invites us to embrace it, also. 

Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. – (John 5:19)

This truth and this lifestyle is sustainable.  For sure, ‘sabbaths’ are still needed, but you won’t ‘run out of gas’ doing Father’s business.  Listen to an insight from Jesus.

I receive My nourishment by serving the will of the Father who sent Me and completing His work. – (John 4:34 Voice version)

Our Grace level fluctuates throughout our lives. It’s imperative that we learn to live within God’s Grace.

Consider the scenario in this graphic.  We’re excited about the growth curve that’s happening in our lives.  God is blessing us with favor of many kinds.  We’re happy and life is rewarding.  

Getting more ‘things’ has become easily attainable and within our own power.  We want bigger and better positions, possessions and power.

So we ask for more favors, incur debt, burn the candle at both ends, experience anxiety and fatigue, and find that we have almost no time for personal sabbath-type refuelings.  Of course, everyone else is running hard, too, so it seems normal.  And besides, “We’ve got to keep up with the Jones.”

This reminds me of a Lily Tomlin quote:  “The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win you’re still a rat.”   

Without question, this life mode is guaranteed to have a ‘moment of reckoning’.  Something will break; health, finances, relationships, etc.  Then we’ll be forced to reconsider and reevaluate what’s really important in our lives.

If you’ve hit a snag in life… something isn’t working anymore… and your patience and endurance is running thin, consider that you may have exceeded the grace of God in your life.  You may have to ‘reduce’ back to where the grace level is.

It usually takes a pretty strong force to change a mindset and lifestyle… imagine stopping a locomotive or turning a ship.  And this ‘reckoning’ usually requires some level of trauma to ‘encourage’ us let go of self-acquired things… especially, if our identity is wrapped up in them.

We’ll have to search for where we exceeded God’s grace.  Where did we grasp for something in our own strength?  Where did we exchange the unmerited favor of God, for sacrificing personal sweat?   Consider this:

godliness with contentment is great gain – (I Tim 6:6)

with food and covering, we shall be content. – (I Tim 6:8)

These two verses present values that serve as guardrails on our lives.  They show us the bottom-line.  We must coach our hearts into the ability to be happy even if these bare-bones conditions are present in our lives.  If we can be happy ‘here’, then everything else is icing on the cake.

Don’t misunderstand me.  I’m not advocating poverty.  And this is certainly not a poverty mindset.  Rather, we’re getting back to living within the grace that God provides… whether that means to be abased or to abound.  (Phil 4:12)

This is how we stay out of the ‘sweat zone’.  Isn’t it amazing… God’s ways always prove to be better than our ways.

To listen to Mark speak on this topic, go to: https://youtu.be/BZrrMR4xKo4

— MLH

Your inheritance includes super-natural provision

So how do we get started living in supernatural provision?  Well, since you’ve asked, I’ve created a graphic that explains the transition that takes place on our journey toward living in the Law of Blessing.  This graphic also describes some of the pitfalls of not using wisdom on this journey.

Most of us start out with our vocation supplying our primary source of income.  And even though we may have some level of spiritual relationship with God, any ‘income’ derived from our spiritual ‘reality’ is fairly small to non-existent.  Our objective should be to move into a place where our spiritual life is vibrant and exercised enough that it begins to activate Heaven’s ‘supernatural’ supply… in other words, a supply that is greater than the effort, time and intellect that we’ve invested.

I describe supernatural provision like this:

If your income is only commensurate with the amount of time, effort and intellect that you’ve put in, then that is natural provision… which is simply living under the Law of Sowing and Reaping.  It goes like this: if I don’t sow… I don’t reap.  If I sow sparingly, I reap sparingly. Etc… Who’s in charge of this setup? I am, of course.

But if your provision measures significantly above the time, effort and intellect that you put in, then this is super-natural provision.  This level of provision is activated as we learn to devote ourselves to being about our Father’s business in the unique way that He’s made you and I.  At that point, I believe Heaven rallies to be our total Jehovah Jireh.  This is living in the Law of Blessing.

This is an overly simplified way of saying it:

If you put in a ‘dollars’ worth of time, effort and intellect… and unexpectedly, you get back more than ‘dollar’, then you are experiencing the increase of Heaven.

Consider this graphic:

Notice the left side of the graphic. Initially, our primary provision is ‘sweat’ income… in other words, it comes solely from our vocation.  Very little provision comes from our spiritual impact or influence.  But as time passes and as we mature, we want those dynamics to switch so that more of our provision comes from our spiritual impact and less from our ‘sweat’.

Of course, our society has its version of this. It’s called a retirement plan.  But who wants to work their whole lifetime, by the “sweat of your brow” on a ‘rock-pile’ job, beating big rocks into little ones, just so we can have a few years of retirement.  Why not (as early as we can understand these principles) get serious about cultivating and maturing our unique spiritual identity until it is honed and invaluable in its respective place in society.  That way we get to do what we love to do all of our life and eventually we find ourselves living in the Law of Blessing rather than the Law of Sowing and Reaping.

For more of my posts on how to find and live within our unique identity, click here and here.

A common pitfall is that people get trigger happy when they see this possible route to supernatural provision.  They think they have enough faith to jettison everything and live by faith… or ‘walk on the water’, so to speak.  They don’t realize that their ‘leap of faith’ isn’t true Biblical faith at all.  It’s just naive hoping.  They haven’t built a ‘position of faith’ sufficient to support them.  Sadly, many people live their lives in such a way that they don’t actually need faith to live… as a result, they don’t have a history of faith.

Then, when a person tries to live beyond their level of faith, they inevitably face lean times of lack and want.  This will lead to a moment of reckoning.  Deut. 7:22 describes how this can happen; “I’ll not give you the promised land all at once lest the wild beasts overtake you.”  Some of the “wild beasts” of our day are; fear, bills, hunger, lack, etc.

So it’s really important to apply wisdom on this journey. But the reward of living outside of the ‘sweat’ zone, is so worth it!  And in the process, you get to do what you love to do… enjoy God and activate your true identity.  Now that sounds like living!  I’ve posted five practical steps here.

For more on this subject, check out my book Supernatural Provision.  To get a copy, click here or see me personally.  You’ll find priceless gems; insights, practical tips, and inspiring testimonies to launch you into your own life of living in Heaven’s super-natural provision.

Are you ready to live in your inheritance?

— MLH