OVERFLOWING GRACE

“And the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”  (1 Timothy 1:14 ESV)

In his first letter to Timothy, Paul doesn’t say God’s grace arrived, or helped, or even covered him. He says it overflowed.

Overflowing grace is not measured, cautious, or reserved. It is not God giving us “just enough” to get by. It is abundance. It is excess. It is God pouring Himself out in such a way that the container of our lives simply cannot hold it.

Paul writes these words as a man who knew his own failures intimately -- persecutor, blasphemer, violent opponent of the gospel. Yet he becomes the one who proclaims grace as a flood that sweeps away guilt, shame, and the old identity.

Grace doesn’t drip into our lives -- grace rushes in. Grace doesn’t stop at a full cup -- grace spills over. Grace doesn’t simply refresh -- grace renews, remakes, and overflows.

And when grace overflows, it doesn’t just change us. It spills into the lives around us -- into our families, our churches, our schools, our workplaces, our communities. Overflowing grace becomes a river that carries hope to dry places and a drink to parched souls. 

Let grace define your past. You are not who you were. God’s grace has already rewritten your story. Let grace sustain your present. You don’t have to earn what God freely gives. Let grace shape your future. God’s overflow means there is always more -- more mercy, more strength, more love – for you and for others through you.

Where is God inviting you to stop living on “just enough” and start trusting His overflow? 

-- SOUND BITES Ministry™

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GRACE POURED OUT

“But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”  (Titus 3:4-7 ESV)

Grace is what sets Christianity apart from every religion in the world. God’s unearnable salvation, forgiveness, and eternal life offered, not as a reward, but as a free gift. Nothing -- absolutely nothing -- required on our part, except to believe. No fine print and no strings attached. When we trust in what Christ has done, when we rely solely on His promises, all the treasures of heaven are ours. It doesn’t matter how miserably you’ve failed in the past. It’s irrelevant how messed up your life is right now. Grace is true and certain no matter what you might do or fail to do in the future. It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? But that, in a nutshell, is the simple gospel. The only question is this: Have you received Christ’s remarkable gift? 

-- Max Lucado in “Life lessons: Book of Galatians” 

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OVERFLOWING HOPE

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." (Romans 15:13 NIV)

When you meet a person who is really excited about something it shows. Their zeal is obvious to all and they are a chatterbox talking about "their thing." Every aspect of life has some connection with this item of excitement. In short, they are overflowing with the goodness of this thing in their life. It may be a new job, car, relationship or other happening in their life. But, regardless of what it is, they "work it in" to every conversation. They simply cannot contain their new happiness and it overflows to all aspects of their life.

What about your friend Jesus? Have you gotten excited about our Lord?… Does it show? Does your zeal overflow? Do those around you see Christ at work in your heart?… We can feel the joy of the Lord and stand and shout for joy and let the world see the Spirit overflowing into all areas of our life. Practice joyfully and thankfully seizing the day and recognizing that God has given us another gift of "today." And that kind of attitude is catching!…

Do you "overflow" with the good things of God? Does your attitude of loving the Lord bubble to the top for all to see? 

-- Pastor Gary Stone 

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OVERFLOWING GRACE

“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.”  (Psalm 23:5 NRSV)

You have a place at God’s table.  And He is filling your cup to overflowing.

The overflowing cup was a powerful symbol in the days of David. Hosts in the ancient East used it to send a message to a guest. As long as the cup was kept full, the guest knew He was welcome. But when the cup sat empty, the host was hinting that the hour was late. On occasions, however, when the host really enjoyed the company of the person, he filled the cup to overflowing. He didn’t stop when the wine reached the rim; he kept pouring until the liquid ran over the edge of the cup and down the table.

Have you noticed how wet your table is? God wants you to stay. Your cup overflows with joy. Overflows with grace. Shouldn’t your heart overflow with gratitude? 

-- Max Lucado in “Traveling Light: The Promise of Psalm 23”

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OVERFLOWING BLESSINGS

“My cup overflows with blessings.”  (Psalm 23:5 NLT)

Is an overflowing cup full? Absolutely. The wine reaches the rim and then tumbles over the edge. The goblet is not large enough to contain the quantity. According to David, our hearts are not big enough to contain the blessings that God wants to give. He pours and pours until they literally flow over the edge and down the table. You’ll like the paragraph penned a century ago by F. B. Meyer [in “The Shepherd Psalm”]:

“Whatever the blessing is in our cup, it is sure to run over. With Him the calf is always the fatted calf; the robe is always the best robe; the joy is unspeakable; the peace passes understanding… There is no grudging in God’s benevolence; He does not measure out His goodness as an apothecary counts his drops…, slowly and exactly, drop by drop. God’s way is always characterized by multitudinous and overflowing bounty.”

The last thing we need to worry about is not having enough. Our cup overflows with blessings. 

-- Max Lucado in “Traveling Light: The Promise of Psalm 23” 

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OVERFLOWING LIFE

“But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”  (Titus 3:4-7)

We fence God in by the boundaries of our experience. "How much do Daddy and Mommy love you?" we ask a three-year-old; and the child stretches baby arms to their limit while answering happily, "This much!"  Yes, indeed -- and vastly more.  But a child's capacity to perceive and to describe is limited by the length of his arms and the measure of his experience.

So it is with our expectations when we acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord of our lives.  After all, we have so little basis for comparison.  Our secular culture promises extravagant possibilities from miracle drugs, or from investments, or from the lottery genie that may drive to our address.  We evaluate such problems cautiously, as we should; and then we recognize, with pain, that we need much more than that, and we want much more.  Something deep within insists that life ought to hold more.  But we rarely realize that the "much more," the overflowing life we desire, awaits us in Jesus Christ.  We think He is a membership to be joined, a cause to which we enlist, a doctrine to which we will subscribe.  We are slow to understand that He is a King in whom all of life finds a new center and a new circumference, new time and new eternity.

-- J. Ellsworth Kalas in “New Testament Stories from the Back Side”


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SPILLING OUT

Philippians is Paul’s happiest letter. And the happiness is infectious. Before we’ve read a dozen lines, we begin to feel the joy ourselves -- the dance of words and the exclamations of delight have a way of getting inside us. But happiness is not a word we can understand by looking it up in the dictionary. In fact, none of the qualities of the Christian life can be learned out of a book. Something more like apprenticeship is required, being around someone who out of years of devoted discipline shows us, by his or her entire behavior, what it is. Moments of verbal instruction will certainly occur, but mostly an apprentice acquires skill by daily and intimate association with a ‘master,’ picking up subtle but absolutely essential things, such as timing and rhythm and ‘touch.’ When we read what Paul wrote to the Christian believers in the city of Philippi, we find ourselves in the company of just such a master. Paul doesn’t tell us that we can be happy, or how to be happy. He is simply and unmistakably happy. None of his circumstances contribute to his joy: He wrote from a jail cell, his work under attack by competitors, and after twenty years or so of hard travelling in the service of Jesus, he was tired and would have welcomed some relief. But circumstances are incidental compared to the life of Jesus, the Messiah, that Paul experiences from the inside. For it is a life that not only happened at a certain point in history, but continues to happen, spilling out into the lives of those who receive Him, and then continues to spill out all over the place. Christ is, among much else, the revelation that God cannot be contained or hoarded. It is this ‘spilling out’ quality of Christ’s life that accounts for the happiness of Christians, for joy is life in excess, the overflow of what cannot be contained within any one person.

-- Eugene Peterson’s introduction to the book of Philippians in The Message


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