Enabling Grace
Every day, God calls Christians to do what feels impossible:
• Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind (Matthew 22:37)
• Love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:39)
• Put to death every sinful impulse (Colossians 3:5)
• Actively bless those who hurt you (1 Peter 3:9)
As hard as you try, by your own willpower, you cannot do any of these. Jesus made that point very clear in John 15:5—
I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
If you attempt to do something without Christ’s enablement, you will fail. It may not happen instantly but ultimately God will help you to see that the work He has given you to do cannot be accomplished in your own capacity. You need God’s empowering grace.
We see this same reality woven throughout the entire Bible. When King David praised God for providing the resources to build the temple, he prayed,
Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Yours is the dominion, O LORD and You exalt Yourself as head over all. Both riches and honor come from You, and You rule over all, and in Your hand is power and might; and it lies in Your hand to make great and to strengthen everyone (1 Chronicles 29:11–12).
The strength to do God’s will comes from God’s hand alone. It lies in His hand to make great and to strengthen everyone.
But divine enablement is not a permission slip for passivity. We don’t get to throw our hands up and say, “Well, if God doesn’t give me the strength to bless my enemies today, I’ll just curse them and pray for more grace tomorrow.” That’s not how grace works.
The author of Hebrews reminds us that lounging in our weaknesses and passively waiting for God to give us strength is not an option for the believer. We are called to “draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).
The enabling grace is there in abundance. The strength is there for the taking—but we have to get up, draw near, and ask for it. Only then will we find the enablement to do the work he’s given us to do.
The Apostle Paul strikes this balance so well. He was painfully familiar with his inability to fulfill his ministry in his own strength (2 Corinthians 3:5; 12:9–10). Yet, drawing on the enabling grace of God he never quit. Reflecting on his own ministry, he wrote,
By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me (1 Corinthians 15:10).
It was divine grace that empowered Paul to do the impossible. And that same divine grace is available for God’s people today. God holds all the strength you need to fulfill your calling. Your responsibility is to go to Him, ask, receive, and then get to work.