The Grace of Abundance
I know you’re thinking the title should say “The Abundance of Grace,” not “The Grace of Abundance.” Sometimes it seems as if God isn’t enough in or for a situation, and that’s why people give Him an excuse; an out… like grace. “His grace is enough.” they say, which is true; don’t get me wrong. And it wouldn’t matter how I felt about it either - God’s Word says it’s true and we have all, in the bottom, in the abyss, in pain and the horrors of this life experienced the undeniable, tangible abundance of His grace, and we know it even, as Oswald Chambers puts it, in the “mundane.”
I want to say that God’s grace is enough, but to live and speak as if it’s just the last resolve in an impossible situation or difficulty is to strip grace of a vital aspect of its power.
“Well, even though things didn’t turn out the way we would have liked, still, God’s grace is enough.”
“But barely. And honestly… I could have used more.” (You think to yourself)
It’s good to memorize Scripture you can’t get out of your head. God has been massaging this one straight into me, from 2 Corinthians 9, and I can’t get away from it. Pay special attention to the frequency of the words in italics. Paul is trying to get an important if not urgent message to us here at the risk of irritating redundancies:
“And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything you may have an abundance for every good deed, as it is written,
‘He scattered abroad, He gave to the poor, His righteousness endures forever.’
Now He Who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness; you will be enriched in everything for all liberality, which through us is producing thanksgiving to God. For the ministry of this service is not only fully satisfying the needs of the saints, but is also overflowing through many thanksgivings to God.”
And on and on. When you have a minute, read the rest of the chapter. More words like “liberality” and “surpassing” and “indescribable” will greet you. Then read it in The Message version, and tell me you’re not left smiling.
And this in 2 Corinthians from the chapter before:
“Now, brethren, we wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia, that in a great ordeal of affliction their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality. For I testify that according to their ability and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord…”
Then verse 7: “But just as you abound in everything, in faith and utterance and knowledge and in all earnestness and in the love we inspired in you, see that you abound in this gracious work also…. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich…. your abundance being a supply for their need, so that their abundance also may become a supply for your need…”
My Friend, I want to be careful not to meander into any doctrine that may sound suspicious or “televisioned” but there is no avenue down which we might stroll where the impact of the previous Scripture can be glanced over as simply a storefront of discounted, over-processed, poorly designed goods, or which would on the flip side purpose merely, insultingly, to increase our own personal bank account. These ideas are too small; too human.
The abundance of God’s grace, available for your flourishing in whatever stage of life you’re in, has always, as its prime purpose, the glorification of God. Listen to the Greek translation describing the grace of abundance in our 2 Corinthians 9 Scripture:
“…it came to pass that God’s veracity became the more conspicuous, and becoming thus more thoroughly known increased His glory.” *
You can read it again; I had to.
Grace is truly an inexpressible, uncontainable treasure to the Believer, leading to the desiring of an all-and-only life of service to its Giver. The abundance in turn satisfies not only the recipient, but extends endlessly to all effected; a loving God’s selfless expression to His beloved. His glory, your grace.
What about abundance then? Where is the grace of it in your desert; in the parched, cracked creek bottom of it all? It is not there because the dried creek bed cannot contain it. Grace abundant overflows anything that tries to close it in, control it, give it boundaries.! Like our Scripture says, grace abounds. That means Dear Believer, that the grace of abundance always exceeds the necessary and the ordinary, and if we were experiencing it in full, we would say it is “lavish.” Grace abundant always exists and superabounds! **
That changes things, doesn’t it? The grace of God’s abundance…His immovable, unchanging devotion to truth, His credibility, accuracy, meticulousness, faultlessness, candor, complete honesty, precision, justice, and sincerity, cannot contain in word or thought or imagination what is available to the believer.
Friend, “see to it that you abound in this gracious work.” How? The same way you got saved; ask and believe what the Scripture says. Don’t wait. It’s not “just enough;” it’s abundant.