Ability (part 4) Thought about the ability to have ability

God’s Abundance in Your Life

And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.

2 Corinthians 9:8

    When you relate to God you always deal with abundance, for God does nothing in half measures! This is true regarding His grace.

The Lord is not miserly when it comes to providing grace to His servants. When you seek to perform a good work that God has asked you to do, you will always find an ample supply of God’s grace to sustain you.

If you begin to lose heart in the work you are doing, God’s grace upholds you and gives you the love for God and His people you require in order to continue.

When you face criticism and are misunderstood, God’s grace enables you to forgive your accusers and to sense God’s pleasure even when others do not understand what you are doing.
When you make mistakes in the work God has appointed you to do, God’s grace forgives you, sets you back on your feet, and gives you strength to continue the work.
When you complete the task God gave you and no one expresses thanks for what you have done, the Father’s grace surrounds you, and He reminds you that you have a heavenly reward where everything you have done in the Lord’s service will be remembered.

    God does not promise to provide all you need for your dreams and projects. He does assure you that, for every good work you attempt, you will never face a shortfall of His grace in order to successfully complete the task God has given you.

From: Experiencing God Day by Day

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Preceding articles:

1. Ability
2. Ability (part 2)
3. Ability (part 3) Thoughts around Ability

Next

• Ability (part 5) Thought about the abilities to be under God's Spirit

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Additional reading

1. Not about personal salvation but about a bigger Plan
2. Failing Man to make free choice
3. Looking for a spiritual new life
4. Challenging claim 2 Inspired by God 1 Simple words
5. When having found faith through the study of the Bible we do need to do works of faith
6. Salvation, Baptism and Re-baptism
7. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #13 Prayer #11 Name to be set apart
8. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #15 Exposition before the Creator
9. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #18 Fulfilment
10. Omniscient God opposite a not knowing Jesus
11. Lost senses or a clear focus on the one at the stake

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Related articles

• Hoping to Raise an Ebenezer
• Who cries out against a hearty and uncompromising castigation of error
• People prefer serving to managing, human relationships to financial security, peace to power
• Don't Give Up!
• Church should lead crusade against corruption - Pastor Unoarumhi
• Being kind to ourselves - even the difficult bits
• Buhari Urges Nigerians To Keep Faith With Change Begins With Me Mantra
• Fill the Emptiness
• Made Perfect in Weakness
• Believe in God

The longer you wait

Not so many people are looking for God nowadays, but in case you are, are when you are wondering about that mysterious God, do not procrastinate.

Man has waited a long time, but God has waited even longer. He has shown His patience long enough. He has also allowed man to look for some systems to govern this world. But as we can see throughout history, man has not made something good out of it.

The words “sanctification” and "justification "have been under much debate recently in the church. This debate is less about the actual definition, and more about the ramifications behind how it is actually lived out in the Christian life.

There are preachers, priests and pastors, who want others to believe man is saved by the Blood of Christ and no does not have to do anything any more. They even say that works of faith is a blasphemy. but we would like them and you to have a closer look to what is really written in the Bible.

We should listen much more to the Words of God and come to understand His Plan with mankind and how we do have to fit in God's Plan.

There is God’s will of freeing us from sin, sending His only begotten beloved son. God wants us to become more like that Nazarene man Jesus who was authorized by God to do many miracles. Jesus showed the way to God and to sanctification. We either can see it or keep ignoring his teachings, preferring to hold strong to human writings instead of Godly writings.

Those who say we as Christians do not have to do any work any more should listen to the apostle Paul his writing to the Thessalonians

 “3 For this is the will of God, [even] your sanctification, that ye abstain from fornication; 4 that each one of you know how to possess himself of his own vessel in sanctification and honor, 5 not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who know not God; 6 that no man transgress, and wrong his brother in the matter: because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as also we forewarned you and testified. 7 For God called us not for uncleanness, but in sanctification. 8 Therefore he that rejecteth, rejecteth not man, but God, who giveth his Holy Spirit unto you.

9  But concerning love of the brethren ye have no need that one write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another; 10 for indeed ye do it toward all the brethren that are in all Macedonia. But we exhort you, brethren, that ye abound more and more; 11 and that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your hands, even as we charged you; 12 that ye may walk becomingly toward them that are without, and may have need of nothing.” (1 Thessalonians 4:3-12 ASV)

We have to make ourselves like Jesus. To do this we have a lifetime, but the longer we wait, the harder we’ll cling hopelessly to God and his promises.

When we are willing to give ourselves to God and willing to learn about Him we shall come to get to know more about Him. Bit by bit we shall come to know Him better and we shall come to see how our faith in God also can change our attitude in life. That is what has to happen. As soon as we want to go for God we should be willing to give ourselves in the hands of God and letting Him change our inner being.

Our life shall not always go smoothly, also not when we have become a Christian. But when we keep going on the right path, in the process of waiting, spiritual transformation shall happen in our life.

If God always gave you what you want when you wanted it, he would not be such a good Father, but be like any worldly spoiling father, not preparing his children for this life on earth and not getting them to know the values of life. We also should remember that we still are of sinful nature and that not everything we want is the right thing or something good for us or good for others. Think about it. Considering our sinful nature, if you never had to wait, you also would never have a reason to trust God. We would do our own thing. We would never pray. We would not revere Him for His character. If we never waited, our lives would be much worse.

Therefore be patient and look forward to the higher promises of God.  Follow Jesus as the Way to God and try to become like him. This will demand many efforts or works, but it shall be worth it.

Do not postpone and come to recognise who Jesus is, what he has done and Who his heavenly Father is and why that Eternal Spirit Who cannot be seen by man is so important for the whole world. Get to know why we should become children of Jesus ' heavenly Father.

Meditate on James 1:5-8 and on the second chapter about faith and works.

Please also look at our series on From Guestwriters:

1. Leading people astray!
2. Restitution
3. Comments to James remarks, about Faith and works
4. Luther’s misunderstanding
5. January 27, 417, Pope Innocent I condemning Pelagius about Faith and Works
6. Our life depending on faith
7. Romans 4 and the Sacraments
8. Is Justification a process?
9. Justification – salvation is by grace through faith – JI Packer
10. Faith itself not the cause of justification – Louis Berkhof
11. Letter to the Romans, chapter 3
12. Letter to the Romans, chapter 4
13. Additional comments to the 3rd Letter to the Romans
14. Additional comments to the Letter to the Romans 4
15. Which is worse–works without faith, or faith without works?
16. James 2:14-23 — Justified Dynamic Faith & works
17. James 2:24 – You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.
18. James 2:25. Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way?

and read also other articles as:

1. A god who gave his people commandments and laws he knew they never could keep to it
2. Our relationship with God, Jesus and eachother
3. Christ’s ethical teaching
4.  Being Justified by faith
5. Faith Alone Does Not Save . . . No Matter How Many Times Protestants Say It Does
6. A Living Faith #3 Faith put into action
7. A Living Faith #6 Sacrifice
8. Faith and works
9. Bearing fruit
10. Observing the commandments and becoming doers of the Word
11. The first on the list of the concerns of the saint
12. Be holy
13. She who sows thistles will reap prickles
14. Love for each other attracting others
15. Outflow of foundational relationship based on acceptance of Jesus

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Related articles

• Jesus and the Reality of Spiritual Warfare
• Be Known By Your Fruit
• DIG for Monday the 1st of February.....justified by his grace, affirm this constantly.....Titus 3 v 7 and 8
• Are You Chosen?
• Acts 11
• The Word: Acts 1:6-11
• Worthy to Serve
• Faith In Action 'Being Distinctively Salted'
• 100-Day Identity Makeover: Day 53
• The Shame of Obedience

End of the Bottom Line

The importance of the bottom line is one of the first lessons of business. Effective business and professional leaders are naturally performance-oriented. They understand the need for results. But that attitude can sometimes negatively affect our spiritual lives.
Ephesians 2:4-10 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.(Holman Bible)

In Business Terms ...

While hiking alone out of the country, I crushed my left leg in a bad fall. I had to drag myself nearly three hours to get to a road, where miraculously I was found and taken to a hospital. Eventually I was flown back to the United States for surgery. The most profound result of that accident was that I discovered God in my pain. There I was, stretched out in bed in excruciating pain, and praying didn't make the pain go away. So I began to ask God how to find him in the midst of the pain and not only as the alleviator of pain. He answered that prayer. Some of the times of deepest pain and anguish were periods of closest fellowship with him. For the first time in my life, I was taken off the fast track for a brief time. I discovered most of my security and identity was in what I accomplished for God - preaching sermons, writing books, leading a church, being part of a media ministry. All of this identified my worth. What can you do when there's nothing to do but wait for healing? During that difficult convalescence, I discovered in a new way that God loves me not for what I do but simply because I belong to him.  - Lloyd John Ogilvie

Something to Think About:

We can't save ourselves by pulling on our bootstraps, even when our bootstraps are made of the finest religious leather.  -  Eugene Peterson
 - 1 Minute Bible for Business Professionals - "End of the Bottom Line"