In addition to the light of God’s Truth to guide us on our journeys in life, God has given us His own vital superpower to enable us to live according to His light and to follow the best path for our lives.
It is through this superpower that you are saved and empowered to live according to God’s will. Without this superpower, you could not be saved, and you would never be able to fulfill your potential and achieve God’s best for your life.
There was so much agreement among the early apostles of the necessity for this superpower in the lives of believers that it was the number one blessing that they imparted to the believers more than anything else. Nothing else was even close. They referred to this superpower in every single epistle in the New Testament except for the 1st and 3rd epistles of John.
Paul said that he was who he was because of this superpower, and that it was this superpower that enabled him to accomplish his purpose. (1 Corinthians 15:10; Ephesians 3:7-8)
It was when Peter, James, and John discerned that Paul had this superpower that they welcomed him into their ranks and blessed him on his mission. (Galatians 2:9)
Paul assured us that if God grants us this superpower, we can have everything we need at all times. (2 Corinthians 9:8)
When the apostle Paul experienced a time of weakness and prayed earnestly to God for help, God responded by telling Paul that this superpower was all he needed. (2 Corinthians 12:9)
This superpower enabled the Corinthian believers to be “exceedingly enriched” by God in all of their speaking and knowledge. (1 Corinthians 1:4-5)
Peter declared that it is by this superpower that we are able to stand regardless of what may come against us. (1 Peter 5:12)
We are urged, whenever we are in need, to go boldly before God’s throne to receive this superpower to help us. (Hebrews 4:16)
What is This Superpower?
This most vital superpower that enables you to accomplish your purpose in life is **grace. **
Traditionally, grace has not been valued by the Church as it should be because grace has not been understood in our day as it was understood and valued by the early Church leaders.
On their missionary journey, Paul and Barnabas encouraged and exhorted those they were discipling, specifically “urging them to continue in the grace of God.” (Acts 13:43 AMP)
As Paul mentored Timothy, he wrote, “my son, be strong [constantly strengthened] and empowered in the grace that is [to be found only] in Christ Jesus.” (2 Timothy 2:1 AMP)
God ends the Bible with this blessing in the last verse of the book of Revelation:
“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.”—Revelation 22:21 (KJV)
Why grace? If God was going to choose one final blessing to leave us with at the end of His written Scriptures, why did He choose to bless us with grace? Why not wisdom? Why not love? Or why not any one of a thousand other qualities or strengths?
When we understand what the grace of God really is, this mystery will become clear.
Traditionally, the Church has defined “grace” as “God’s unmerited favor,” or just vaguely as “the blessing of God.”
Those definitions don’t really have any substance to them. They don’t really tell us what God’s grace does for us. What’s even worse is that those definitions are not accurate. Favor is favor. Grace is grace. They are not the same thing.
The traditional definitions of grace do not really make sense when we try to apply them to the ways that the word “grace” is used in Scripture. They seem totally inadequate to define what grace really is.
Paul credited his success in life to the grace of God!
“But God’s grace has made me what I am. And his grace to me was not wasted. I worked harder than all the other apostles. (But I was not really the one working. It was God’s grace that was with me.)”—1 Corinthians 15:10 (ICB)
It had to be much more than a vague blessing or divine favor that enabled the Apostle Paul to become such a great leader and to accomplish all that he did in his life. He was not just blessed. He was *empowered *by grace.
And that is what grace is. Grace is power from God. But it is not just power in general. Grace is power that is specifically given to us by God to enable us to accomplish His purposes in life.
Bill Gothard defines God’s grace as “a dynamic power that He gives to every single person in the world to do His will.”
Grace truly is your most vital superpower!
But that’s not all!
Along with power, as we can see from the Apostle Paul’s testimony, grace carries with it the motivation to do God’s will and to accomplish His purposes for our lives.
Grace is the whole package! Grace gives us the power, the *ability, *and the desire to do God’s will.
Now we can more fully understand why, when Paul was desperate for help from God in a particular area of his life, God responded by telling Paul:
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”—2 Corinthians 12:9 (ESV)
Then, after receiving this response from the Lord, Paul was content, and responded by writing, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10 ESV)
It’s no wonder that the writer of Hebrews exhorts us to “come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”—Hebrews 4:16 (KJV)
Grace is not some vague, general blessing. Grace is the very precise power and ability—along with the motivation—that we need at any given moment to accomplish our purposes in life according to God’s will.