More Than We Realize by Rocky Fleming

“Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” Romans 5:2 (ESV)

After about seventy years as being identified with Christ as a believer and later a true follower, I can truthfully say that I’m still learning more each day about the tremendous benefit of God’s grace.  Like most of you, for the majority of my Christian walk I thought that grace was for atonement alone.  I was mistaken.  It is a living benefit that delivers to me, in this life, all that grace includes.  I began to realize there is more to it when I spent extra time with trying to understand what God told Paul about His grace.  In essence God said to Paul that whatever difficulties he would encounter, even assaults from the enemy that harassed him, the grace God gives Him is sufficient to counter them. 

And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  (NKJV)

Paul points out another key point that I somehow missed.  I love his words, “…we have also obtained access by faith into this grace..”  Access by faith.  In reading this it reminds me of a means for retrieving a great fortune such as key is to a lock box, or a map to a hidden treasure.  Grace is the treasure, and faith opens heaven’s doors to it.  The greatest Treasure is Jesus Christ.  Faith in Jesus receives the grace God gives us through Him. That is where grace to us begins.  But it doesn’t end there.  There is more.  There is nothing greater than the Treasure of Jesus.  There is no debate there.  But there is more included in God’s grace than we often do not expect, or benefit from because we do not access it.

When Paul was given those words from God to him about grace, he had a choice.  Would he believe God or not?  Would he rely on the promise of a stream of grace from God whenever he needed it, or not?  Would he navigate his life on that promise from God, or not?  He would have not accessed it if he did not have faith in God’s promise and the great capacity of God’s grace to do what God said it would do.  God said that His grace is sufficient.  When Paul said that “we have..” he included himself, and in fact, it was his personal experience with God’s promised grace that caused him to instruct us to use the “key to the treasure”  to find it ourself, which is faith.

I think that many Christians feel that faith is a one and done thing, thinking it is simply having faith that Jesus is who He said He is and having professed faith in Him some time in the past.  That would make it an action that we see in our rear mirror of life, but not a present and future action, wouldn’t it?  Now really.  Can we not read what Jesus says about how faith as little as a grain of mustard seed can move mountains, and not see that He is speaking of an active and the ongoing faith of His disciples accomplishing great things (Matthew 17:20)?  Can we not see that this faith taps into God’s capacity to do things that we ask of Him, things that we can never be able to do as humans, things that are adequately described as supernatural?  For a Christian faith is never passive.  It must be active, and it must always be striving for God’s best in us and out of us.

I feel that God is opening my eyes to even more things than I’ve learned in the last 77 years.  I see a great treasure house of answered prayers waiting to be delivered to me if I will use the faith key to access it.  This excites me.  This challenges me to keep believing, keep seeking, keep asking, and keep growing in the understanding God wants to give me about His grace and my faith, and what is holding me back.  I think there is a whole lot more that God wants to bless me with through His grace and I don’t want my passive faith to hold me back from it.  I am convinced that there is more to it than I realize.  Do you want more as well?