The Sufficiency of Grace

"Whom have I in heaven but You?
And there is none that I desire besides You.
My flesh and my heart fail;
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." Psalm 73:23-28

"Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul,
Therefore I hope in Him!" Lamentations 3:22-24

We looked at these two passages of Scripture last night in Bible study as we discussed the sufficiency of God's grace. We spent a few minutes examining how God is "our portion." My Bible study notes indicate that this phrase is a reference to the territorial allocation to the tribes of Israel, when the Levites were given the Lord as their portion instead of land. Just as the Levites were dependent upon the Lord for their provisions, so are we. How often are we mindful that everything we have, even each breath we take (Acts 17:28), is from the good hand of God? Our human tendency is to fall into the sinful attitude of self-sufficiency, both physically and spiritually. Therefore, God continually works in the lives of His children so that we realize our utter dependence on Him, and sometimes He uses suffering or difficult circumstances to draw us to Him. He never allows pain without a purpose, and He always uses affliction to conform us to the image of His Son (Romans 8:28-29). In the midst of our suffering, God provides grace through the Holy Spirit to strengthen us and enable us to meet those circumstances in a godly manner. Jerry Bridges explains, "God's grace is not given to make us feel better, but to glorify Him. Modern society's subtle, underlying agenda is good feelings. We want the pain to go away. We want to feel better in difficult situations, but God wants us to glorify Him in those circumstances. Good feelings may come, or they may not, but that is not the issue. The issue is whether or not we honor God by the way we respond to our circumstance. God's grace - that is, the enabling power of the Holy Spirit - is given to help us respond in such a way." (Transforming Grace, pp. 144-145) In whatever the circumstance, I also desire to be able to say, "the Lord is my portion, therefore I hope in Him."