The God of All Grace

"And after you have suffered for a little while,

the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ,

will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you."

1 Peter 5: 10

I love that phrase "the God of all grace" because there are SO many graces, and He is the Lord and God of them all, and the one you need at the time, He makes abound to you when you draw upon Him for it. Jesus, the God of all grace, gives us a special grace that allows us to join with Him in "the fellowship of His sufferings" for a season, "for a little while" that we may be perfected in Him, and He then pours out a new grace that reveals His glory and takes us into our victory. I love that He's the one that perfects, confirms, strengthens and establishes us. I love that we can yield, follow and identify with Him and then He does the ultimate of what we need...to be perfected, confirmed, strengthened and established. What we need is IN Him, joined at His heart and conformed to His death that HIS life in us may be revealed and established.

Lord, we thank You that You are the God of all grace. We thank You that You love us with an unconditional and an everlasting love and that You are working all things together for our good. We thank You for the grace of longsuffering and perserverence, for the grace to walk through the trials and challenges of life that cause us to come to the cross, die daily to our old man and draw upon Your life and strength. Thank You for each days measure of grace that's sufficient for that day and that circumstance. Thank You that You watch over us, keeping and guarding us from being consumed by our enemies. We thank You, Lord, that You have great plans for us, plans for good and not for evil, plans to give us a future and a hope, and after we have "suffered for a little while", after we have been tested and refined by the fire, You, the God of all grace, will perfect us, confirm us, strengthen and establish us. You WILL be glorified in and through us. That is our desire too, Lord, that You be glorified in us. So have Your way, Lord. We yield to You and Your wisdom. We yield to all that You want to do in and through us that the life of Christ may be seen in us, that we may be "living epistles, seen and read by all men".  Amen and amen