Grace: The God in ALL and ALL and ALL: A Testimony

And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work. 2Co 9:8 

ALL Grace

Measure it.

And you cannot exhaust the breadth, the length, the depth, and height of it.

It’s like water freely flowing from a rock.

And that Rock is Christ.

Grace and the Day I Got Saved

It was the saddest day of my life.

My whole life had just ground to a halt.

In my happier days, I had begged God never to save me. I clutched at my beer bottle at Florida 2000 nightclub on Koinange Street, when God visited me.

Life was good, and that life didn’t seem to have an end. Vaguely I wondered what thing would ever separate me from my tipple. And as if in answer to that thought of God rudely intruding into my mind, I begged him never to save me. But I added (as if to conciliate him): “Please save someone else who deserves it!”

I was in a nightclub for god’s sake. How could he visit me in a place like that? I learnt, a few years later, that I had been visited by God’s grace, and I didn’t know it.

But I Remained Hard as a Rock

Nevertheless, I ignored him. To get saved? That would mean giving up my whole life. I counted the cost, and I didn’t like it. That is what drove my anger.

On one hand I valued his concern: “Consider your ways.” I stared in awe at the utter meaninglessness of life before me. But on the other hand, the cost for giving up all that staggered me!

That is why I was at F2000 alone and at 4am.

The grace of God had just rubbed on me. But I didn’t recognize it. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last.

It would follow me (many years later) at my hospital bed at KNH, and this time I recognized it for what it was. It was at night in the ward.

And in that chilling stillness a single man appeared “from nowhere” beside my bed. He preached to me until the whole bed shook. God’s grace had caught up with me at last. And this time it never left.

How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; 

God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will? Heb 2:3-4  

Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice, 

Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: 

When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. 

Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. 

So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.) 

Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. Heb 3:7-12 

ALL Sufficiency

By the time of my salvation I had nothing.

Everything had gone.

The business.

The health.

The wife.

The friends.

Everything that is called “life” had gone.

But strangely I felt a great relief (which was a far cry from the rollercoaster of emotions I had experienced before). The world would never again exert its power over me. I would no longer be subject to its tyranny: living the life of a false image, and the pressure to be liked.

“Come unto me all ye that labour… and I will give you rest.”

“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

It was like a fire was lit in my heart.

Every word of God spoke to me powerfully, as if it had been written exclusively for me.

Every need I felt, every question I had, every hunger, and every thirst, I found the answer for it in his word.

“Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.” 

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” 

“And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” 

I only had to name my hunger and Christ’s grace was sufficient for it.

I only had to name my thirst and Christ’s grace was sufficient for it.

That’s how I have stayed single and celibate for 25 years now.

ALL Things

And his grace has poured forth… into every part of my life. As it is written:

Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Isa 55:1-2   

By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 

And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; 

And patience, experience; and experience, hope: 

And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. 

For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. Rom 5:2-5 

The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. Joh 10:10  

Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, 

Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. Eph 3:20-21  

Sufficient Up to the End

How is his grace sufficient in the hour of unbelief? “Just believe.”

How is it sufficient in the hour of anxiety?

“Consider the lilies.”

How is it sufficient in the hour of pain?

“My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”

He is sufficient in riches.

He is sufficient in poverty.

Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: 

But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. Joh 4:13-14  

Come brother, come sister, let us drink to this amazing grace. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” 

Even our faith, his gift!

Yes, guys, let us drink this to the hilt!