Creflo Dollar
I remember my wife giving me a certificate to go skydiving on my 40th birthday. I thought, that’s going to be pretty neat, jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. Included in a skydiver’s equipment is one main parachute and one reserve parachute. I had the thought, what if I only had that one main chute? I began to think about how dependent I was on the second chute. Would I be able to put my full trust in just one chute? It’s a lot easier to go skydiving knowing that you have that backup chute.
Well, living the life of grace is almost like that scenario. God wants us to depend on one “chute”—grace—but we keep depending on the backup “chute”—self-effort, or self-reliance. Today, the Spirit of God is saying, “When will you get to the point in your life where you’re going to be totally dependent on that one chute, God’s grace, and everything that Jesus has already done for you?”
We are surrounded by too much grace to ever be defeated in any area of our lives. There’s just too much grace that’s been made available to us to be troubled about anything. But in order to avail ourselves to God’s grace and lay hold of what we need by faith, we have to maintain the balance of the presence of God in our lives. You have to practice the presence of God in order to tap into His wisdom concerning the circumstances of your everyday life.
One of the ways we engage His presence is by engaging in His Word. The devil’s task is to distract you out of, and away from, the presence of God. But you have to train your mind to focus on the Word because there are many distractions in life. This can be as simple as taking a scripture and meditating on that scripture every day; or before going to bed, reading a paragraph from the Word and meditating on that. When you get in the Word, you get in the presence of God. The Bible says in the God’s presence is fullness of joy and at His right hand are pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11). When you get in God’s presence, He can begin to show you some things and reveal things to you that you need to know.
You have a choice; you can focus on your problems, or you can focus on Jesus. His grace is available for you, no matter what you’re going through. There’s no circumstance you’ll ever come up against in life that can prevail against God. He knows the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10). He is already in your future, rooting for you at the finish line!
Make it a point from this day forward to expose yourself to God’s presence by exposing yourself to His Word. Trials and challenges that seem larger than life melt when we’re in the presence of the Lord. His presence eliminates worry, fear, doubt, and frustration. That’s where His grace comes in! There’s too much grace available for you, so don’t you dare give up, cave in, or quit on God, because He will never quit on you!
But He said to me, My grace (My favor and loving-kindness and mercy) is enough for you [sufficient against any danger and enables you to bear the trouble manfully]; for My strength and power are made perfect (fulfilled and completed) and show themselves most effective in [your] weakness. Therefore, I will all the more gladly glory in my weaknesses and infirmities, that the strength and power of Christ (the Messiah) may rest (yes, may pitch a tent over and dwell) upon me!” (2 Corinthians 12:9, AMP).
When you continually practice the presence of God, you can learn how to rejoice even in the midst of trouble! Why? Because your hope is in Christ, and He never disappoints!
