Have you ever had one of “those” days?\u00a0 You know what “those” days are right?\u00a0 The days when everything goes wrong.\u00a0 I feel pretty confident in saying that we have all had those days.\u00a0 We forget to set our alarm clock or hit the snooze button and wake up late for school or work.\u00a0 We have a new shirt or pair of pants on and we spill something on it.\u00a0 We are helping plan a surprise birthday party for someone and we accidentally send a message to the person being surprised instead of the person helping plan the surprise (I said it was a bad day didn’t I?).\u00a0 Maybe our spouse said something that hurt our feelings, our children said something that hurt us, we had a rough day at work, or something else.\u00a0 The possibilities of what makes us a bad day are literally endless.\u00a0 They are not fun to go through, but they are nevertheless a part of life.\u00a0 Therefore, we better learn how to deal with them or we are going to continuously be in a bad mood.<\/p>\n
The apostle Paul battled something in his life.\u00a0 What it exactly was we don’t know, but Paul called it a “thorn in the flesh” a “messenger from satan” in 2 Corinthians 12.\u00a0 Paul says that he prayed three times for God to remove it.\u00a0 Have you ever prayed that your day would get better?\u00a0 God gave Paul an answer.\u00a0 That answer however was a “no, I won’t remove it.”\u00a0 Now it should be noted that we don’t see where God said “no” but we can certainly understand that was God’s answer by what He did say to Paul.\u00a0 It is found in 2 Corinthians 12:9, “And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”\u00a0 Does that seem harsh to you?\u00a0 Here is Paul, a man who loved God and was doing his work, and when he asked God for help, God said no.\u00a0 It’s not harsh.\u00a0 I think many times we confused God giving us what we want with His love for us.\u00a0 In our minds, if God answers our prayers the way we want, He loves us, but if we don’t get the answer we want, He must not love us or care about me.\u00a0 We need to understand that God is not a genie that we can rub a bottle, Him pop out, and give us whatever we want.\u00a0 God may not have answered Paul’s request the way Paul would have liked, but God did give him something that would help him deal with his “thorn in the flesh.”\u00a0 God gave Paul enough grace to deal with what he was going through.\u00a0 God said His grace is sufficient.\u00a0 In other words, ______ (insert your name) all you need to deal with what you are going through is My grace.\u00a0 Before we discount God’s grace like “wow I needed this, but God gave me His grace.”\u00a0 I want us to understand how powerful that grace truly is.\u00a0 Grace is powerful enough to meet our deepest need as humans and save us (see Eph. 2:8).\u00a0 God’s grace is powerful enough to help meet whatever we need we may have, that is what it means to be sufficient.\u00a0 God’s grace is everything we don’t have, but what we really need.\u00a0 You are having a bad day, God’s grace can give you the strength to get through it.\u00a0 You are going through a rough time in life, maybe you lost a loved one, you are having marital or family problems, work problems, health problems.\u00a0 Literally whatever your problem is God says, “My grace is sufficient.”\u00a0 I don’t know what you are going to, but I encourage you to surrender yourself to God and His grace, it is all you need.\u00a0 From the smallest problems in life to the biggest need for all humans (the need for forgiveness and a Savior), and every problem in between, God’s grace is sufficient.<\/p>\n
By His grace and through His strength may we live for Him<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Have you ever had one of “those” days?\u00a0 You know what “those” days are right?\u00a0 The days when everything goes wrong.\u00a0 I feel pretty confident in saying that we have all had those days.\u00a0 We forget to set our alarm … Read More