Influencers Weekly Devotional

Go With ME

Embracing our Sacred Responsibility with Christ

Loosen Your Grip

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 2 Corinthians 12:9 (NIV) Like many men who take up golf and tennis as an adult, I had a problem with my grip on the racket and golf club. I would grip it too hard. It was more of a mental issue for me, which had its roots in my perceived notion that I could control the outcome of the shot by keeping a tight grip on the racket or club. Now, you golf and tennis aficionados know I would not be able to control my shot this way, but rather, it leads to terrible results. A tight grip not only impedes a natural swing through the ball, but it also robs power from the swing and decreases accuracy. It goes against our instincts to loosen our grip on just about anything, especially in these sports. But when those instincts are retrained and the grip is loosened so that correct fundamentals can take over, enjoyment of the game follows, along with success. Most experts will tell you it starts with the grip. Even though your fundamentals may be good on every other aspect of the swing, if your grip is faulty, the other fundamentals will not work as they should. One thing I have discovered about my relationship with Christ and my Christian walk is that there is also a grip fundamental that must always be practiced, before the other religious fundamentals come together. The grip fundamental I speak of is faith. My relationship with Christ begins with faith, and learning to walk with Christ requires faith. Maturing as a Christian requires faith, and learning to live with peace, power and purpose requires a correct faith grip, or else I will frustrate my other Christian fundamentals. Since it is the most foundational fundamental in our Christian life, I think we need to explore what a correct faith grip looks like. In the passage above, we see Paul being required by God to relax his grip on his life, so that he could be taught how to have a correct grip. As an ex-Pharisee Paul had been well-schooled as a religious fundamentalist. He had taken all the classes and had done well in his religion training. He had then arrived to an "elite" status in his profession and religion. He was a "Pharisee of Pharisees." When he had his great conversion experience with Christ on the road to Damascus, his reprogramming then began to prepare him for the rest of his life. You see, God had to do with Paul as He does with many successful men who come to know Him. He had to break his tight grip on who he was and how he got things done. God had to break Paul of his self-importance, his self-reliance and his notion of how to relate with God. All the religious fundamentals he had studied could not work and would not make complete sense, until the basic fundamental of faith was engaged first. This was a hard life divergence for a performance-driven, religious, perfectionist like Paul. He was now asked to give up his notion that salvation could be earned by his adherence to the Law, and put his faith in another Man's work on the cross. If this was not hard enough, he was then taught that his ability to do great things for God would not be by way of his credentials, his training, and his hard work, as he had been taught, but rather, by God's grace and his dependence on it. In the passage above we read where Paul says in essence, "I get it. I get in the way of God's great power being delivered to me and through me when I operate in my own strength. God is binding me to a concept that through my weakness, and my dependence on Him, His power is perfected in my life!" When this was done, he then had a complete picture, and all the religious fundamentals that seemed so incomplete before then came together for him. When he got his faith grip right, the other fundamentals fell in place. Although the Apostle Paul was a unique man and had a unique experience, the basic fundamental of our faith grip is the same as his. The hardest part for us to understand is how our weakness and dependence on God's grace works for the good because we have been raised to think otherwise. Just like a new golfer who grips his club too hard by thinking that he will have more power and control, likewise is our grip on life as we try to get things done "correctly." We actually hurt our ability to do things "correctly" by doing it this way. Just as fear and our attempt to control the outcome of a shot will destroy a good swing in golf, so it is with life. Our fear and our attempts to control the outcome of our life, destroy our joy, peace and spiritual growth. We must loosen our grip on these things, so that God can grip them for us, and then, we will live a life that He can bless. Personal Abandonment of ourselves and Absolute Trust in Christ always require of us a step in faith. But this step is always rewarded, as we begin a life that will eventually lead to fulfillment, joy and great power from God being delivered to us. As with Paul, it is the beginning step in a journey with Christ that will go with us into eternity. It all begins with the faith grip, which makes everything else make sense. Listen to Paul's words as he tells us what he thinks about his new faith grip: "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me." Ok guys. Let's loosen our grip so that Christ's power will rest on us. That's the kind of grip that will keep our life under His control. In His grip, Rocky TO DOWNLOAD A COPY OF THIS DEVOTIONAL, CLICK HERE