GENEROUS GRACE

TUESDAY 08 FEBRUARY 2022

In today's Scripture, Paul wants us to acknowledge the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ more clearly, His astonishing kindness, His generosity and His gracious favour. Although Christ was rich, for our sake He became poor, so that by His poverty we might become rich (abundantly blessed). This is a large and deep truth, though spoken in little phrasing. In other words, it is a profundity expressed in plain diction, with the deepest depth clearly explained today.

Reference: 2 Corinthians 8:9 New Living Translation (NLT) "You know the generous grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty he could make you rich."

When many read and attend to this Scripture, what comes to their mind is that Christ became a broke guy with little or no monetary value, so that we might have and experience financial blessings through that outcome. No! This is a logical view, misapprehension or a mistaken belief. I personally call it the "error-based" version of the interpretation of this Scripture. In actual spiritual sense, this is not really what Paul meant by this Scripture, although material and financial riches are part of God's blessings for His people.

Christ becoming poor here actually means that He emptied Himself of everything and made Himself of no reputation. The Bible says in Philippians 2:5-8 (KJV): "Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."

In the same Philippians 2:5-8, the Complete Jewish Bible presented it in this manner: Though he was in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God something to be possessed by force. On the contrary, he emptied himself, in that he took the form of a slave by becoming like human beings are. And when he appeared as a human being, he humbled himself still more by becoming obedient even to death —death on a stake as a criminal!" That means, Christ emptied Himself and ended up like a poor criminal, to accomplish our salvation, riches and glory.

Christ is so richly blessed in everlasting glory and measureless resources. For this reason, Paul interceded for the Ephesians saying, "I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit" (Ephesians 3:16 NLT). Remember He created all things, because the Bible says, "For through him (Christ), God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can't see— such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together" (Colossians 1:16-17 NLT).

In what practical ways did Christ become poor so we could become rich through His ostensible poverty? Firstly, through the atoning efficacy of His death upon the cross, Christ took the place of an impoverished servant and in the process, He was disgraced and condemned to death. In this way, He helped to bring about our justification, which is part of the riches of His glory. For this reason, we became rich and significant in God's sight! Simply put, Christ became a poor servant to the point of death, so we could attain the justification, which is part of God's riches in glory. Another practical way is found in 2 Corinthians 9:8 which reads, "And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work" (ESV). This is a generous grace made available to us in Christ through His poverty.

Remember that apostle Paul talked about the "unsearchable" or" boundless" riches of Christ recorded in Ephesians 3:8 (NIV), which is an outright testimony that Christ never became poor in monetary terms and otherwise. So what is Paul emphasizing in today's referenced Scripture? In a nutshell, the epistolary expression, "Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty he could make you rich", simply means that as a blessed and sovereign God, full of eternal glory and majesty, Christ came in form of man, forgoing or depriving Himself of His heavenly glory, to be subjected to the poverty of suffering on behalf of mankind, in order to present each man that believes in Him rich and perfect before God. In other words, this "rich" mentality Paul described, denotes being supremely blessed and perfect before God. Shalom!

Scripture Reading - John 1:14-17; Romans 3:24; Ephesians 1:6-7; Romans 5:15.

Guided Prayer: Gracious Father, I thank you for the riches of your grace vastly delivered to me at Christ's expense and the teachings of such class. Through the mystery of poverty in relation to Christ's sufferings, I'm made rich and well equipped as a heir of the Kingdom and joint-heirs with Christ. I possess the same power as Christ and I have access to goodly and profitable inheritance because Christ has reproduced His glory and blessings in my life. By meditating on the Word, I daily familiarize myself with the ever-increasing knowledge of the boundless riches in Christ and I possess them by the Spirit's enabling grace, in Jesus' Name, Amen!