Week Five Day Five Making it Personal

Question 20.  Two questions to focus on are:

What do we need God's grace for?

How can we experience more of God's grace?

"Nothing whatever pertaining to godliness and real holiness can be accomplished without grace."-Augistine

For the first question we need God's grace for everything.  As humans we are weak and always in need.

I need God's grace to:

Take a specific step of obedience

Love my husband as Christ loves the church

To repent and submit to both God and my husband

To accept a particular ministry opportunity

To carry out whatever God wants me to do

To be more patient

To be more understanding

For the second question we do not deserve God's grace.  However, we can easily get it because He wants to give it to us as the following verses state:

James 4:6

But he gives more grace.

Therefore he says:

"God resists the proud,

But gives grace to the humble.:

1 Peter 5:5 "For in this manner in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adornd themselves, being submissive to their own husbands."

Proverbs 3:4 

Surely he scorns the scornful,

But gives grace to the humble.

Question 21.  According to the above verses what king of people does God oppose?  Why?

The proud and scornful.  A person who is self-sufficient may not rely on God.  Everything they do is in their control and they handle things themselves without asking for help.

This sounds like me.  An excellent example is when I went to the grocery store with a list.  First the list wasn't organized.  I went from one end of the store to get something in the dairy section.  Then I went to the produce section for another item.  Then it was back to the dairy section.  For the hard-to-find items, I didn't ask for help but went up aisle after aisle and had to back track several times until I found what I needed.  If I had organized my list better and asked for help. I would have saved at least 15 minutes.

Question 22.  What is God's condition for receiving more grace?

God gladly and freely gives His grace to people who are humble.  We do this by acknowledging our helplessness and our need to Him and by crying out to Him for his grace.

Question 23.

Psalm 84:11

For the Lord God is Son and shield

The Lord will give grace and glory;

No good thing will He withhold

For those who walk uprightly.

James 1:17 "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.

What (who) is the source of all grace?  What does that suggest about where we should look to get our needs met?

We need to look to God to get all ours needs met since he is the source of all grace.  He is the:

Lord God,

The father of lights,

Is the source of all grace.

1 Peter 5:10 "But the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, prefect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.

In the words of Greg Laurie-"God does not convict us of our sin so He can drive us away in despair, God convicts us of our sin to send us into the open arms of Jesus, who died on the cross to pay for all of our sins."