Grow in Grace 
By Mike & Becky Rule 

Christians talk a lot about God’s Grace and about wanting to grow in His Grace, but what does that mean? Do we really know what we are asking for?

Grace is literally defined as divine enablement; unmerited favor. It is hard for us to comprehend that the only way to grow in unmerited favor is for MERITED favor to lessen, decrease, be squashed, and annihilated. The only way to grow in divine enablement is for human enablement to fail and be insufficient. As John the Baptist said, "He must increase; I must decrease." (John 3:30)

To grow in His Grace is to grow into greater levels of weakness. But let’s be honest, who likes the idea of being weak? The greatest challenge of our lives is being strong enough to be weak. We need His Grace to enable us with a willingness to be weaker so that we will grow in Grace. We need Him to divinely enable us so that we can grow in His divine enablement. The challenge before us is to be willing to be weak, so that we are in a position to see His power being made perfect.

"Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes, or powerful, or wealthy when God called you. Instead, God deliberately chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose those who are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important, so that no one can ever boast in the presence of God.

God alone made it possible for you to be in Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made Christ to be wisdom itself. He is the one who made us acceptable to God. He made us pure and holy, and he gave himself to purchase our freedom. As the Scriptures say, "The person who wishes to boast should boast only of what the Lord has done.""

(1 Corinthians 1:26-31 NLT)