Do It!

God will give you strength, courage, and wisdom to do and accomplish anything that is consistent with His will. But for some reason, many people fail to understand that you still have to “do it” and do it in faith in Jesus.

Footprints in the sand tells the story of only one set of footprints being visible in the sand during turbulent times. We assume those are our prints and wonder where Jesus was when we needed Him most. We then find out that those footprints in the sand weren’t ours, but rather were made by Jesus, who had carried us through the tough part.

Nope. That isn’t how it works. God always works in partnership with us. We must be an active, willing and most importantly, a faithful participant in the thing we need Him for. Otherwise, there would be no faith nor spiritual growth and dependency on Him if God just came in, brushed us aside and then solved our problems for us. God is not an “on-demand” servile miracle worker.

One time the Apostle Paul couldn’t handle a situation on his own. Paul went to Jesus in prayer on three separate occasions pleading for help and to have Christ take care of the situation for him. Did Jesus lift up Paul and carry him through the troubled sands? Nope.

Jesus told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for thee”.

What is grace? Grace is God’s attributes bestowed freely upon us. They are spiritual gifts such as strength, courage, and wisdom. They are given, received, and put to use by those who believe in Christ.

Now here’s the confusing part for some. You’ve been empowered by Christ with His divine spiritual gifts. Now what? Are you going to be like Paul and wait for Christ to come by and pick you up?

King David had had it in his heart to build a house of “rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and for the footstool of our God”. David was ready to begin construction when God told Him No! Do not build Him a house because David had, “been a man of war, and hast shed blood” (1 Chron. 28:2-3).

God instead chose David’s son Solomon to build the house. Once announced, “David said to Solomon his son, Be strong and of good courage, and do it: fear not, nor be dismayed: for the Lord God, even my God, will be with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee, until thou hast finished all the work for the service of the house of the Lord.” (1 Chronicles 28:20)

"And do it"! God can gift you with every grace imaginable, but if you don’t get up “and do it”, then it will all be for naught. Potential energy, (that’s us loaded with God’s grace) can only be translated into kinetic energy (that’s the doing part) by our will and act to do it! Strength and courage are made manifest once we put them into motion. Or in the words of the Nike Corporation, “Just do it!”

God’s grace is sufficient in all times under any circumstance. God is so full of grace that He even gives “grace for grace”! (John 1:16). That's grace on top of grace!

It’s all very simple. Have faith in Jesus, in His will and of the power of His grace. Demonstrate that faith by doing His will and applying that grace He has bestowed upon you. Then, things move from being probable to possible, from potential to actual.

Jesus said, “Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.” (Matthew 24:46)

Bill Hitchcock