The Grace that is called Stability – Part 1 by Abraham Adeyeye

When we stand before God in prayer and Intercession, His grace that was imputed to us based on the integrity of the heart causes us to be stable. His grace is His unmerited gift that we received, through the abundance of His loving-kindness (Hesed) towards us. His grace keeps us strong in faith before Him in the midst of all difficulties, and the contradictions of life that we may face as we pray.
The scripture says:
“You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.”
‭‭James‬ ‭2:24‬ ‭NIV‬‬
What we do as we wait for the answer to our prayer causes God to respond to us. The corresponding action to our professed faith causes His grace to increase for us. God weighs our confession of faith through our heart or spirit-man (Proverbs 20:27).
There is absolutely nothing that God does for us that is not first of all spiritual. Our action by faith must therefore match up with our words of profession before Him always.
David once made a declaration before the Lord, as he prepared all that was needed for Solomon (his son) to build the temple. David had done many things personally, to take him to the end of the planning stage in this project. He observed how the people had given willingly towards the project before the Lord and said:
“I know, my God, that you test the heart and are pleased with integrity. All these things I have given willingly and with honest intent. And now I have seen with joy how willingly your people who are here have given to you.”
‭‭1 Chronicles‬ ‭29:17‬ ‭NIV‬‬
David led his people in giving to the Lord. He showed the stability and integrity of his heart by the way he gave. The grace of God was so abundant in his life.
A man of integrity before God has a stable heart. He is consistent and steadfast in what he says and does always. David was fully yielded in obedience to God. His heart was established in this vision of the temple. In witnessing the manner of giving by the people, his heart became established in the grace of God to complete the project.
Paul also exhibited stability in the integrity of his heart, as he waited before the Lord to take away the thorn in the flesh that Satan sent against him. He responded in that grace that is called stability as he wrote:
“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christʼs power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭12:9-10‬ ‭NIV‬‬
Christ’s power was made perfect in the physical weaknesses of Paul. Paul immediately recognized the grace of God that he was standing in.
Grace in Being Stable
Stability is therefore the strength that comes through grace, to stand or endure difficulties without loosing the quality or flavor of our spiritual life, in the times of adversity as we continue in prayer before God.
The Psalmist wrote concerning a man of faith in God:
“He shall not be afraid of evil tidings; his heart is firmly fixed, trusting (leaning on and being confident) in the Lord.”
‭‭Psalm‬ ‭112:7‬ ‭AMPC‬‬
It is God’s grace that causes us to stand and be stable in our spirit-man. Especially when it looks as if there will be no change coming to our circumstances in response to our prayer.
It is at that time while we stand in His grace, that our faith in the promises of God is made stronger, even as Christ’s righteousness shines through our lives. We must not allow the enemy (at that moment) to drain out our spiritual strength. We need not become restless and unable to do anything by faith at that moment. It is always the trick of the enemy to push a believer away from acting by faith, so as to make him give up on God’s promises.
The scriptures says again:
“You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For, “In just a little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay.” And, “But my righteous one will live by faith. And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.”
‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭10:36-38‬ ‭NIV‬‬
The moment we feel not to live by faith is actually the best time to intensify our faith walk in the promises of God. The breakthrough is right at that interception where our faith meets with corresponding action.
Refreshing Times
The time of weakness is the greatest moment that our faith needs to be more active. For our faith to remain active, we must learn to be refreshed always in the presence of the Lord (Acts 3:19). Our faith in God’s promises are made stronger as we are being refreshed (Psalms 19:7). The time of refreshment is the moment to regain stability back in God’s presence.
There are times when the enemy will come all out against us, so as to create confusion in our lives. That is the moment we must be ready to acknowledge that our faith is not based on any vision or words of men to us. It is the time to realize that our faith is based only on the written word of God.
That is the moment to get back into the elementary basics of the promises of God, so as to reenergize our faith and get our spiritual boost back.
Being refreshed gets us prepared for the next move of God. We may be feeling sapped out of our spiritual energy; but on the inside our inner man is getting ready for more spiritual warfare. That is when our dependency on God to carry us is very important. His grace will always sustain us.
Example of Abram
In Genesis chapter 15, we saw this happened to Abram as he stood in the presence of God while entering into a blood covenant with Him. After Abram had prepared the animals and the birds for entering into a blood covenant with God; something unusual but powerful happened to him that I strongly believe marked the beginning of a turn around in his life.
The Bible says:
“And when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him.”
‭‭Genesis‬ ‭15:11-12‬ ‭NKJV‬‬
Abram fought back the vultures continually, that wanted to prevent the initiation of the blood covenant with the Most High God. In doing this he was actually doing spiritual warfare against the enemy (or the agents of Satan), who wanted to take away his blessing from this covenant with God Almighty. He fought them back physically, but yet it was all a spiritual exercise, because it all happened right in the presence of God.
Yet neither God nor the angels present did anything to help Abram in fighting back the vultures. He had to fight back the enemies (the vultures) by himself. This was the greatest spiritual warfare that Abram fought and won, which qualifies him to enter fully into a blood covenant with God, the Mighty Warrior.
In winning this spiritual warfare Abram set himself up for promotion before God. His name was later changed from Abram to Abraham.
We must recognize from this example of Abram, that we do have spiritual authority over the evil one. God will not do anything for us in fighting the enemy back. He had given us all authority in Christ Jesus, both here on earth and in the heavens (or in the spirit world) over the Devil. We do have all that it takes to chase the enemy off our inheritances in Christ Jesus. And if we are not ready to fight him back, we will never be able to stand at all (Ephesians 6:13).
We need to observe here that in the case of Abram, it was after Abram finally finished fighting off the vultures, that he fell into a deep sleep right in the presence of God. He was tired. He needed some time of refreshing in the presence of God.
It was at that moment (in the deep rest or sleep); that God showed him all that would happen to his descendants after him. God gave him the guarantee that He would do what He had promised him based on their covenant of blood together.
Pray in the spirit
When we are feeling weary or tired spiritually, we must never forget that the Holy Spirit had been given to us as the Comforter, Helper, Advocate, Intercessor, Standby, Strengthener and Counselor (John 16:7 AMPC). He is always there to pray with us into deep intercession.
When we do pray in tongues, we are releasing our spirit into a spiritual exercise at that time of weakness with the Holy Spirit to strengthen us (Romans 8:26-27). That is why it is important to yield our tongues to the Holy Spirit, as He helps us in our time of weakness. To yield simply means, to move our tongue to speak whatever comes out of it audibly.
Our ability to pray in tongues is a spring of water flowing from the heart or the inner-man. It is eternal. It should never dry up, and we need to keep that river flowing by praying in the spirit always (John 7:37-39). When we fail in doing this on a regular basis, the river of God in us dries up and we will be spiritually dead.
Paul said:
“Do not quench the Spirit.”
‭‭1 Thessalonians‬ ‭5:19‬ ‭NIV‬‬
Quenching the Spirit renders us insensitive to the moves of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The process of spiritual death begins with our insensitivity to the Holy Spirit.
Remember that the spiritual strength of a believer is always within that believer. The grace to be spiritually stable in the midst of spiritual warfare comes when we decide within ourselves to stand up and stand strong by faith.