BY KENNETH HAGIN JR.
And he (God) said unto me (Paul), MY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR THEE: for MY STRENGTH IS MADE PERFECT IN WEAKNESS. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 2 Corinthians 12:9
A verse we often hear quoted is “God’s grace is sufficient!” But what is God’s grace sufficient for? God’s grace is sufficient for everything we encounter in our Christian walk. However, the greatest area in which we need God’s grace is coping with trials, troubles, and tribulations. Have you ever experienced any type of trial, trouble, or tribulation?
The devil is going to give you some problems; he’s going to find out if you really believe what you say you believe. In other words, he wants to test, or put on trial, your faith.
1 PETER 1:7
7 THAT THE TRIAL OF YOUR FAITH, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be TRIED with fire, MIGHT BE FOUND UNTO PRAISE AND HONOUR AND GLORY at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
The devil comes along as a roaring lion looking for those whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). It is easier sometimes to devour a young Christian because a young Christian doesn’t always know who’s speaking
to him God or the devil. Long-time believers can also be easy to devour because they can become pretty self-sufficient and overconfident in their knowledge of how to deal with whatever comes along. As a
result, often they don’t depend on the grace of God.
But I’m going to tell you something. When you are dealing with the enemy of your soul, you must be on guard sixty seconds out of every minute, twenty-four hours a day. You must be ready to defend your
territory.
You ask, “What do you mean, ‘defend your territory’?” I mean that the Word of God tells us to go and possess what belongs to us. The enemy of our souls is going to do everything he can to take that away from
us. He wants us to sit down and be satisfied with not receiving all that God has for us.
It’s up to you to possess what belongs to you in Christ and to defend your territory. It’s not up to God, it’s not up to the church, and it’s not up to how many people you can get to pray for you. What kind of decision will you make? What will you do when you find yourself in difficult circumstances, and you’re completely frustrated, exasperated, and don’t know which way to turn?
Don’t wring your hands and say, “What am I going to do?” Just look up and say, “God’s grace is sufficient! He will take care of the situation. I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but I know if He did it for those of yesteryear, He’ll do it again and again and again!”
The Bible doesn’t tell us we won’t have troubles. It tells us how to think and behave in the midst of them.
1 PETER 4:12
12 Beloved, THINK IT NOT STRANGE CONCERNING THE FIERY TRIAL which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you.
There are some people who will try to tell you that you’re out of God’s will because you’re in a test or trial. Well, let me say that if you’ve prayed, sought God, and know that you’re in God’s will, then be as stubborn in faith as Job was and realize that those people don’t know what they’re talking about!
Somebody once said to a believer who was going through a test and trial, “You wouldn’t be in this mess if you were doing everything God told you to do.”
The believer answered, “Well, I am doing everything that I know He’s told me to do.”
Again the person commented, “But you wouldn’t be in this mess if you were.”
But did you notice what Peter said about trials? He said, “Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial.” If he’s telling us “think it not strange,” then that means it must be a normal happening!
In other words, as you live your life for God on earth, the enemy of your soul is going to come against you with every fiery trial he can. If you succumb, you will be defeated and the power of God will be of no effect in your life. But if you continue to stand on the Word and say, “God’s grace is sufficient! My trust and hope are in You, Lord,” then you cannot fail! You cannot go under for going over!
Sometimes even as Christians, we can live defeated lives because we don’t know the Word. If people don’t know the Word, the devil can take advantage of them when they get into trials, troubles, and tribulations. He can defeat them because they think it’s unusual that they’re going through trials and troubles. With that kind of thinking, they start to think God has abandoned them, and they begin to feel like they are no longer in God’s will. Then as a result, they stop trusting in Him and depending on His grace to make it through the trial.
But the Word of God doesn’t say tests and trials are unusual. The Word of God says they’re common to man (I Cor. 10:13). But we can be thankful that God hears us and will be there to deliver us from our trials.
PSALM 34:17
17 The righteous cry, and the Lord HEARETH, and DELIVERETH THEM OUT OF ALL OF THEIR TROUBLES.
Another problem people often have in the church is that they keep their troubles hidden. They put up false fronts. Some of us need to be more sensitive to the Spirit of God. The person we’re sitting next to in
church could be really hurting. Maybe just a handshake or a pat on the back with the words, “Hey, God’s going to take care of it,” is all he needs to keep his feet rooted and grounded during his time of trouble.
Sometimes I can tell by the look on somebody’s face that he’s going through a trial. And if I can just get him to open up even a little bit, then 1 know that the Spirit of God on the inside of me will begin to give me the words to say to minister to that person. Because the Greater One lives big on the inside of me, I can help him because God wants to deliver His people out of all their troubles.
God’s grace is sufficient no matter what happens! He promised to be our strength in the time of trouble.
PSALM 37:39
39 But the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord: HE IS THEIR STRENGTH IN THE TIME OF TROUBLE.
How many of you have found out that when you are in some kind of trial, it saps your strength in the natural? But the Bible says God is our strength in the time of trouble.
That’s where our strength comes from – from God. Somebody said, “Well, God is not speaking to me. He’s not strengthening me.” If that describes you, then perhaps you’re not reading the Word as you should.
You see, so many people are standing around wanting God to hit them on the top of the head, so to speak, knock them down, roll them down the aisle of the church, stand them up, brush them off and say, “Now
everything’s going to be all right.” They are looking for some sort of magnificent, spectacular manifestation – when God has already spoken through His Word!
The Word of God is your strength. Stay in it! Get the Word on the inside of you so that when you face a trial or trouble, the first thing that comes out of your mouth is not, “Oh, God, what are we going to do?” No, the first thing that comes out of your mouth will be, “My God is sufficient. His grace is enough! My God will take care of this problem. I don’t see the answer in the natural. I see no way out of this situation. But the Bible says God is my strength. The Bible says God will deliver me. It is written!”
Jesus gave us the example of how to defeat the devil simply by saying, “It is written,” and He quoted God’s Word because God’s Word was in His heart. You can’t quote what is written if you don’t know what is
written. Somebody said, “Well, the Bible said, ‘Open your mouth and the Lord will fill it.”‘
But I also read in the Bible that the Lord by the Holy Spirit would bring the Word to your remembrance. And the only way He can bring something to your remembrance is if you have it in your heart in the first place!
You can’t remember something you’ve never even read or heard! Yet there are some of you trying to get the Holy Spirit to bring something to your remembrance, but the Lord hasn’t said anything because you haven’t read the Word. The Holy Spirit has nothing to work with in your life.
The Holy Spirit works with us through every situation in our lives (Rom. 8:28). Sometimes a trial or tribulation is the result of Satan tempting us. He wants to see if he can distract us from God and cause
us to sin.
LUKE 22:31
31 … behold, Satan hath desired to have you [Peter], that he may sift you as wheat.
Satan’s goal – his one ambition, if you want to call it that – is to turn God’s highest creation, humanity, away from Him. The devil believes that if he can steal God’s highest creation, he can thwart God’s plan and cause it to be of no effect. But God’s grace is sufficient for us in times of testing. We must completely rely on God!
When you’re going through a test, somebody may come up and say, “Now let me tell you, I went through this same thing, and this is what I did. And my Uncle Johnny went through something very similar to what
you’re going through, and this is what he did.”
Listening to what Uncle Johnny or your friend did is not what’s most important. What you need to do is get in the Word for yourself and find out what the Word has to say. Don’t let anybody else confuse you
with his experiences. Stay with the Word.
So often, people are looking for something spectacular to happen to deliver them. One person says, “You know, the Lord directed me, and a bright light shone on this verse of Scripture, and that set me free.”
You hear that testimony, so you sit all night with your Bible open, waiting for a bright light, but a bright light never comes!
God can use a bright light if He wants to, but God doesn’t deliver people by bright lights – He delivers them by His Word! So if you’re going to be delivered out of your tests, then find out what the Word of God has to say. Don’t let anybody else’s experience influence you. Get in the Word of God for yourself!
The Word of God is what will deliver you. That other stuff will get you confused. And that is what the devil wants. But God’s grace is sufficient for us in temptation! The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation (2 Peter 2:9).
Temptation is Satan’s number one tool. For example, how did he defeat Eve? By tempting her to eat of the fruit (Gen. 3:6). She looked at it and it looked good; she tasted it and it tasted good. But it didn’t bring any good results.
And that is exactly what temptation can do to you. The sin you’re tempted with may look good, it may taste good, it may be fun for a season. But it will cost you in the long run!
The Bible says there is pleasure and fleshly enjoyment in sin (Heb. 11:25). But I’m going to tell you something. You may pay for that moment of pleasure the rest of your life!
For example, you can go down to the local mental health center and see many young people who for one moment of pleasure were tempted to mess with an hallucinogenic drug. In other words, in a moment of
temptation, those young people thought that taking drugs might be fun. They yielded to that temptation, took the drug, and now their brains are destroyed. Many beautiful young people must spend the rest of
their lives in an institution because of “the pleasure of sin for a season.”
The Bible says that the devil goes about to steal and to kill and to destroy (John 10:10)! When he destroys a human being’s mind to the point the person can’t think for himself, he has destroyed the person’s life. And the only thing that is going to change that is a manifestation of the magnificent power of God.
People need to understand that sin costs; it doesn’t pay. But we also need to understand that God is faithful who will not suffer us to be tempted above what we’re able, but will make a way of escape (I Cor. 10:13). And that way of escape is Jesus Christ!
So instead of saying, “I can’t make it through this temptation,” change it to “I can make it. I can overcome. I can be a victor. I can be what I want to be in Jesus through the Word of God.”
PHILIPPIANS 4:13
13 1 can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
I have a mother and a father who always told me as I was growing up, “Don’t say you can’t do it. If you keep saying ‘I can’t do it,’ you won’t be able to.”
I have seen people who didn’t have the ability to do something in the natural, but they kept saying, “I know I can do it. I believe I can do it.” And they did it!
When I got ahold of God and the things of God, I knew there wasn’t anything that God and I couldn’t do together. I knew that I could overcome any trial, any trouble, any test, any temptation, and any tribulation.
Now what is tribulation? The dictionary describes it as great misery or distress or deep sorrow as from oppression. Are tribulations common in our society today? Yes, but God’s grace is sufficient to keep or
preserve us in the midst of and deliver us out of all tribulation. Remember this: God’s grace is sufficient in trials, in trouble, in testing, in temptation, in tribulations- in whatever you may be going through!
Not only is God’s grace sufficient in the midst of these tests and trials, but God’s love is always there too.
ROMANS 8:35,37-39
35 Who shall separate us from the LOVE OF CHRIST? shall tribulation. or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
37 Nay, in all these things WE ARE MORE THAN CONQUERORS THROUGH HIM THAT LOVED US.
38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from THE LOVE OF GOD, WHICH IS IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD.
Although God is sufficient and nothing can separate you from His love, it’s up to you whether or not you make Him sufficient in your own life. It’s not up to me; it’s not up to your neighbor; it’s not up to your
spouse; it’s not up to your mother or father or your sister or brother. It’s not even up to God. It’s up to you whether or not you make God sufficient for your own personal trials and temptations.
And it’s your time to make a decision. You must make a decision to receive the grace of God and to receive by faith the answer you need. When you get ahold of the truth of God’s Word, then stand firm in the
face of every obstacle. Then you’ll be able to move forward in victory. Through your faith in God’s sufficiency, you can escape the mouth of the lion – the devil as he roars and never be affected. Why?
Because God’s grace is sufficient for all of your needs!
THE ABOVE MATERIAL WAS PUBLISHED BY THE WORD OF FAITH, AUGUST, 1994, 4-7. THIS MATERIAL IS COPYRIGHTED AND MAY BE USED FOR STUDY & RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY.
