Six
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
COLOSSIANS 3:16
Beginning in the 1700s and into the 1900s, over 22 armories for the volunteer militia were built in New York City. These structures were so well built that most of them, though no longer used for weapon storage, still stand today. At the time of their construction, the nation’s leaders recognized the need for strong, fortified, and well-guarded buildings to store, maintain, and supply the local militia in case of an enemy attack.
Many people choose to build personal armories in their homes in the event of some catastrophic event. The owners have stocked them with weapons, food, water, clothing, and other necessities of life. These personal armories are carefully guarded, stockpiled, and maintained.
We all have an internal armory. We guard it. We stock it with supplies. We maintain it. What is this armory? Our heart, of course! Our heart contains a surplus of memories, principles, defense mechanisms, and plans. The heart is where we store everything important to us. The heart is not only the physical supply of oxygen for our whole body, but from a spiritual standpoint, it’s the divine supply of everything we need for life and godliness.
What’s the issue, then? The issue is what’s being stored in your heart! Some of the old armories in New York City have been turned into housing. Others, though empty, are uninhabitable because of the dangerous chemical nature of some of the weapons they once contained.
Our hearts are the ultimate storage unit of our lives. Some hearts contain an arsenal of lethal weaponry. These stored weapons are continually poisoning the heart and making it uninhabitable. The Bible issues clear warning about the arsenal of the heart. Proverbs 4:23 says, “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.” Is your heart filled with the supplies that would sustain you and strengthen you through a catastrophic event?
Heart Problems
I’ve got some bad news for you: Your heart, like mine, has a natural inclination away from God and goodness rather than toward them. God put it this way through His prophet Jeremiah: “ ‘The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?’ ” (Jeremiah 17:9). Jesus, in speaking of the heart, said, “ ‘From within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, and an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man’ ” (Mark 7:21-23). This definitely doesn’t sound like a healthy armory, does it?
We all have a natural bent toward storing in our heart things not healthy for us emotionally, mentally, or even physically. The storage unit in the heart will govern our thoughts, and consequently our outlook on life and our responses to the events of life.
What, then, is the good news? Jesus wants to clear out the storehouses of our hearts. He wants to get rid of all the dangerous weapons, poisons, and expired items. He wants to cleanse our armories, completely ridding them of any residue from the toxins they once stored.
Return with me again to the good news of 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Not only is God willing to forgive us the sins of our hearts, but He desires to wash them clean. God removes all the traces of unrighteousness from our hearts. His cleansing is thorough. Then He goes a step further and fills our hearts with His grace!
A New Armory
Before you knew Jesus, you needed to protect yourself from the world. Every time your feelings were hurt, every time your trust was violated, every time you were cast aside, your heart stored it. Then your heart began to develop weaponry against the aggressors of life. The problem was that the heart began to lose the ability to discern between who was an enemy and who was a friend. You used the weapons of your heart indiscriminately. The reserves of the heart weren’t life-imparting or life-sustaining. They hurt others, and they damaged you as well.
Ever hear the term “a piece of my mind”? We all know that phrase means telling someone off, demeaning him or her, lashing out. I don’t know about you, but never have I given away a “piece of my mind” when I didn’t then want to retrieve those brain cells. The gratification was short-lived and gave way to immense shame, embarrassment, and oodles of condemnation.
That was your old armory. You needed those weapons for survival. Once you come to Jesus, however, He takes responsibility for your protection. One of my father’s favorite hymns was “Day by Day.” This hymn contains these wonderful stanzas:
Every day the Lord Himself is near me,
With a special mercy for each hour;
All my cares He fain would bear and cheer me,
He whose name is Counselor and Power.
The protection of His child and treasure
Is a charge that on Himself He laid;
“As thy days, thy strength shall be in measure,”
This the pledge to me He made.
Oh, how I love those lyrics! What a comfort they are to me. Jesus has undertaken the protection of our hearts. He laid this charge on Himself. We don’t have to toughen our hearts or store defensive and offensive toxins anymore. Because Jesus is the Sovereign of our heart, He wants to fill our armories with new supplies. Second Corinthians 10 speaks about these new weapons: “Though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).
Emptying the Old Arsenal
I’ll never forget my wedding day. Since the ceremony was in the evening, the day was filled with last-minute errands. My aunt E.C. volunteered to go hither and thither with me to finish the details and pick up my wedding dress, all tailored and pressed. We also volunteered to pick up hamburgers for everyone getting ready at my parents’ house.
E.C. wanted to talk to me about my fiancé. In the car she said, “Now, honey, I want a straight answer. Why do you want to marry Brian Brodersen?” Of course, I was attracted to Brian, and I loved him. But E.C. was asking for more than that. She was probing for the reason I was linking my life forever with Brian’s. I was ready with the answer. “E.C., when I’m with Brian, I can be the woman I’ve always wanted to be. I can be real, and I can be kind.”
Before knowing Brian, I had built a wall around myself. I’d been hurt once too often, and I’d created a protective shield around my heart. I was often curt and cold to unwanted suitors. It wasn’t that I thought less of them, but I knew they weren’t right for me. Now that Brian was in my life, I could empty the arsenal of my heart from the defensive weaponry. I would now have the security of identity as Brian’s wife.
In the same regard, a covenant with Jesus gives us the grace to be the person we long to be. Covenanted with Him, we no longer have to protect ourselves from the cruelties of life. He protects us. He empties our warehouse of weapons, cleanses it, and prepares it to be the house of His grace.
Filled with Grace
It happened during a specific crisis, when I learned some terrible news about one of my children. I tried to calm myself so I could deal rationally, calmly, and effectively with my child and the offense. I searched my body for a calm button but found I had only panic buttons. The more I tried to calm myself, the more my frustration increased. In that state, I had no way to deal productively with the situation. In utter despair I cried out to the Lord. “I have nothing in the inventory of my heart to deal with this situation. I’m empty.” God heard my prayer. Through the venue of His grace, He calmed my spirit.
It was a process. First, He began to show me what was causing me to panic. At the base of everything in my heart was fear. I was so afraid for my daughter. Second was my love for control. I wanted some physical means to fix her. I wanted a lecture, a locked door, a restriction, or some punishment that would change her mind and ways. I had tried all these before, though, and they were not only ineffective but counterproductive. Since my schemes had failed, I was in a panic. Fear gripped me and wouldn’t let me rest.
God spoke to me and told me to surrender these things in my heart to Him. I did. I didn’t just surrender my fear but all my failed methodology and my desire for control. God didn’t leave an empty space. No. He filled me with His grace. His grace calmed me. His grace filled my heart and reminded me of everything He had done. His grace assured me He would work.
My attitude changed. The panic ceased. I was no longer desperately looking for some means to remedy the situation. Rather, I was filled with the grace I needed to endure, speak graciously, and act graciously. God not only changed the atmosphere of my heart; He changed the atmosphere of my home. This change of atmosphere even affected my daughter. I can honestly say grace gave her the opportunity to change as well.
God wants to fill your heart with His grace. He wants your heart to become an armory of grace. In Luke 6:45 Jesus said, “ ‘Out of the abundance of the heart [a good man’s] mouth speaks.’ ” If our hearts are filled with panic, anger, and frustration, our speech will reflect those attitudes, and those attitudes will color the atmosphere around us. If our hearts are filled with grace, however, we will draw upon grace and speak grace, and grace will permeate the atmosphere.
One of my favorite verses is Proverbs 11:16: “A gracious woman retains honor.” Nothing is quite as humiliating as losing honor. We lose honor when the armories of our hearts are filled with anything other than God’s grace.
To be able to draw from the reserves of grace is awesome. Grace is the divine supply of anything and everything you need for any given situation. Writing about grace, Paul said, “God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8). Observe the totality of grace. Grace is the divine insurance policy that covers every inevitability. Nothing is omitted by grace. It’s all grace. No element of grace is left out.
What do you need for your situation? Do you need love? Grace supplies it. Do you need wisdom? Grace will give it to you. Do you need peace? It’s there in grace. Do you need faith? Grace will supply it. Do you need joy? You’ll discover it in grace.
God’s grace not only meets the need; it abounds toward us. Grace produces more grace. The New Living Translation translates John 1:16 like this: “From his abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another.” Peter opens his epistles with “Grace to you and peace be multiplied” (1 Peter 1:2) and “Grace and peace be multiplied to you” (2 Peter 1:2). Yes! Grace multiplies. Grace grows grace.
Grace always works. Grace never fails. You can never go to the armory of grace and find that it has run out of grace. Unlike an aged weapon, God’s grace is never defective. His grace continually and effectively works for every situation.
Everything you endeavor to do, you do by grace and with grace. Everything that happens to you is infused with grace. Here is the supply house of “all sufficiency.” As the song “Wonderful Grace of Jesus” chorused, “all sufficient grace for me, for even me!” God’s grace meets every need. It’s the perfect solution, perfect weapon, and perfect supply for everything you need.
Grace doesn’t barely meet the need or even simply cover the need. No! Grace goes beyond the need with an overage, with an “abundance of grace for every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8). Grace surrounds, encases, and fills the atmosphere. When Jesus fed the multitudes, as recorded in Matthew 14 and 15, everyone who ate was filled. Every hungry appetite was satiated. Even more than that, however, 12 baskets held leftovers when He fed the 5000 with five loaves and two fish, and seven large baskets held leftovers when Jesus fed the 4000 with seven loaves and a few little fish (Matthew 14:13-21; 15:32-38). The grace of Jesus reaches the need and leaves leftovers of grace—more than enough grace for everyone to partake, be satisfied, and take some home!
Hubert Mitchell took note of this grace before he moved his family of five to Indonesia in 1934. They were going there to evangelize the Kubu tribe, a tremendous endeavor, especially in those days. The area they were moving to was unknown to foreigners and dangerous. Neither Hubert nor his wife, Helen, knew the language of the tribe. Being accompanied by their three children would only increase their vulnerability to sickness, injury, and distraction. Yet they had heard and felt the call of God, and they were going. The journey by boat would be long and complicated, with many hours of sailing. No easy return to the comforts of America would be possible. Once they settled in Indonesia, even their communication with the outside world would be stymied and delayed.
Before setting sail, Hubert visited a pastor. There on the wall of the minister’s office was a framed poem by Annie Johnson Flint titled “He Giveth More Grace.” Hubert was so touched by it that he went straight to a nearby piano, and music to the beautiful words flowed from his heart to his fingers. He kept a copy of the poem on a piece of paper tenderly folded in his pocket and carried it with him at all times, often pulling it out to reread the words until he knew them by heart.
Hubert and his family made it safely to South Sumatra, where they set up a fledging missionary post. God gave Hubert favor with the Kubu tribe, and he began to learn their language and communicate the gospel of grace to them.
In 1940, Helen gave birth to their fourth child in the home of a local Dutch family that had access to a doctor. Two days after little Jean Marie was born, Helen’s head began to ache severely, and two days later she died. Hubert was heartbroken. Yet in this remote place with his newborn baby girl and three other little ones to comfort, Hubert felt the comfort of God’s grace.1 At Helen’s funeral, held the same day she died, Hubert sang the words of the poem to the music he’d written. We know it today as the hymn “He Giveth More Grace.”
He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater,
He sendeth more strength when the labors increase:
To added afflictions He addeth His mercy,
To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace.
His love has no limit His grace has no measure,
His power no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.
Fear not that thy need shall exceed His provision,
Our God ever yearns His resources to share;
Lean hard on the arm everlasting, availing;
The Father both thee and thy load will upbear.
When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources
Our Father’s full giving has only begun.
In the darkest hour of Hubert Mitchell’s life, he found the secret of God’s abundant grace. The sorrow of his circumstances did not change. However, amid the sorrow, the pain, and the agony, Hubert found God’s grace. In a letter he wrote to his sister and brother-in-law, Hubert recounted his story and the grace he received that night. God’s grace continued to sustain the grieving father. Grace comforted the little family and enveloped them.
Hubert was able to draw from his armory of grace. Grace was available. Grace was abundant. Grace was appropriate for the need!
You need an armory of grace for life. There’s no better source to draw everything you need for life than the armory of grace. God desires to stockpile your heart with grace!
Filled with All Grace
Before you can defend yourself with your armory of grace, you need to fill it up! This will require an emptying of the other occupants stored in the warehouse of your heart. I already testified about how I had to empty the fear and fix-it weapons of my heart to make room for the grace.
Cleaning anything is always a battle, isn’t it? My first reaction to cleaning is not positive. I clean because things need to be cleaned and I like the result, but I can’t say I enjoy doing laundry, washing dishes, dusting, or vacuuming. I have friends who enjoy those endeavors, but unfortunately I don’t share their emotional response to cleaning. Cleaning means not being able to do what I want to do because I have to do what I need to do. I would much rather take my dog for a walk, have a conversation with a neighbor, go out with a friend, or play with my grandkids.
Sometimes I have to battle my emotions when it comes to cleaning. For instance, I have a wonderful barbecue, but it needs a weekly cleaning. The process is a bit involved. First, I have to take out the grate and place it in my kitchen sink. The grate is oily and filled with blackened residue that tends to get all over my counter, sink, and blinds. For this job I need rubber gloves, lots of soap, elbow grease, and time. Then a tray inside my barbecue is covered in foil that’s torn and filled with the debris of past meals. So that must be removed and replaced with fresh foil. Now, for you cleaners, this might sound like fun, but for me it’s pure drudgery, and I put it off as long as possible. However, if I put it off too long, my barbecue becomes inoperable. (I once left it too long and a fire broke out and consumed my chicken like a burnt sacrifice!)
In the same way, cleaning out our hearts isn’t enjoyable. We have to recognize and deal with the daily filth accumulated there. We have to reckon with what’s in our heart and acknowledge it, but, also, we have to let God clean it out!
I’ll never forget a battle to simply admit the sin in my heart. I wanted Brian to get my car serviced. I was sure it had been almost a year since the last time, and the icons were beginning to light up on my dashboard. Brian’s schedule was beyond busy, though, and he said he didn’t have time that week to take it in.
We argued, and this was a fight I desperately wanted to win. I wanted the situation taken care of right away! As we quarreled, I felt myself losing the battle. He was sure the car had been serviced less than a year ago. I countered, “No. I have the receipt to show it was over a year ago.”
He looked right at me and said gently, “Cheryl, I know that’s a lie. You don’t have the receipt.” He was right. I didn’t have it, but I was sure one existed. I excused myself from the room and quietly snuck downstairs to find the elusive receipt. I searched everywhere, but it wasn’t with the car receipts in the glove compartment of the car, it wasn’t in the side door of the car, it wasn’t in the trunk, and it wasn’t in the lock box in the house that held our important documents.
While I searched, I felt the pressing conviction of my lie. The Lord clearly spoke to me. Cheryl, I know you lied. Brian knows you lied. You know you lied. So why won’t you simply confess it?
Let me tell you something—it was such a battle to confess to Brian what we both knew. Crazy, huh? Yet what a battle ensued in my heart against admitting my sin! I was loath to admit it because I wanted to feel I was above lying. Obviously, I wasn’t. Ugh! I wanted to have my car serviced, which I felt was a good motivation. Finally, I wanted to win the argument. In resisting the cleansing God wanted to give, I was in fact working against the very thing I wanted.
I confessed it to God. Then I confessed it to Brian, who quickly forgave me. He had known where the receipt was the whole time. It was in his office drawer. The car had been serviced nine months ago.
On a side note, Brian drove my car when we went to pick up our dog from a veterinarian appointment. While we were inside the vet’s, someone left a card for car service on our windshield. Brian considered that a divine sign and took the car in for repairs. (It’s working great, but it needs new tires.)
This is all to say it’s not easy to admit sin. We want to think we’re above it. We don’t want to acknowledge the weapons in our heart as sin. Lying is a sin, but all sin is against God and an enemy to grace.
It’s hard to clean out the old storage room because it’s drudgery getting rid of the old, the corroded, and the toxins that reside in our heart. Sometimes they must be searched out and dismantled bit by bit. Grime spreads, and the job grows bigger even as we’re cleaning.
We often have confidence in these decrepit weapons. Lying, cheating, and other sins become our go-to when circumstances get difficult and we want a quick fix. We must get rid of the old weapons that have never effectively worked. Also, these old weapons have the capacity to misfire and blow up the whole armory.
We must ask God to come in and cleanse our hearts. David, the psalmist, prayed, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10 KJV). David made this request to God when he’d been caught in sin and hadn’t confessed it until after the prophet Nathan called him out on it. David realized the need in his heart to be cleansed so that a right spirit could be renewed in him. Before we can have the right spirit of grace, the armory of our heart needs a good cleansing. Once the heart is cleansed, it can be restocked with grace! We must find the storehouse of grace and begin to fill our hearts with it.
First, we go to the throne of grace. This is the throne highlighted in Hebrews 4:16: “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” This is the same throne the enemies of grace want to cut you off from by the various tactics we talked about in a previous chapter.
Prayer is the supply line of grace, taking us into the very throne room and making our need known. As we pray, God gives us the ample supply of grace to take back to our hearts. But prayer is a battle, isn’t it? We don’t always feel like praying. Often we think of a million things we need to do. Prayer takes time. Prayer is confession. Prayer is a conversation with God. This means we need a time in prayer to listen intently for God to speak to us after we have spoken to Him. We battle to pray so we can be filled with God’s grace.
Another supply of grace comes from God’s Word. The Bible is filled with grace. Luke 4:22 states that the citizens of Nazareth marveled at the “gracious words” Jesus spoke. God’s Word imparts grace to our hearts. Colossians 3:16 instructs us on how to fill our hearts with God’s gracious Word: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” Here is the means by which to fill our hearts with the Word of God’s grace:
First, we allow God’s Word in. We don’t just hear it; we ingest it. James 1:21 further instructs us to “receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” To allow it in, we must receive it with meekness. Meekness is the attitude of receptivity, the placement of God’s Word in our hearts. We read it daily and seek to fill our minds and hearts with it.
Second, we use God’s Word. We go to the storehouse of grace to get the supplies of grace found in God’s Word to exercise the wisdom, to teach, and to warn others. We not only stock and restock our hearts with God’s Word, but we go to this armory and make use of the supplies in it. We learn by using the Word we’ve been given. The more I use my computer, the more I understand it, and the more I want to use it. The same is true of God’s Word. The more we use the Word He’s given to us, the more we’ll know His Word, and the more we’ll want to use His Word.
Third, we learn the Word through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Isn’t it wonderful the way a song will fill your heart? Have you ever been strengthened by a song? I have on numerous occasions!
Coming into church one evening, I was overly burdened for one of my children. She had been making a series of poor choices that were jeopardizing her future, and she had left our home in a blaze of anger. I really didn’t want to be in church that night, but I had nowhere else to go. Staying at home was not an option; it would only isolate me. So there I was at church. The worship began, and begrudgingly I sang along with the congregation, feeling no ability to feign or drum up an emotional response to the music. Then came the chorus to the second song, “Our God saves! Our God saves!” Suddenly my heart was filled with hope as I remembered the saving grace of God. This song became my anthem to the very day of my daughter’s salvation!
I can recall many times when God used a song to fill the armory of my heart with His grace. Notice that in Colossians 3:16 Paul mentions three distinct types of songs. The first is psalms. Psalms are prayers, and every psalm is a prayer. Often in the psalms of the Bible, the author is processing his thoughts, amending his perspective, and then filling his heart with God’s grace. Many of the psalms begin with a dilemma but end with a surge of glory as the author pours out his heart to God.
Other psalms are called declarative psalms. These psalms recount the work of God in the history of people’s lives. As we rehearse the faithful work of God through the lives of the psalmists, our own armories are filled with grace!
Last are the imprecatory psalms. I particularly like these psalms. They’re battle psalms. They call God’s wrath down upon the Enemy while proclaiming the surety of God’s victory.
So psalms fill the armory of our hearts with the grace of God. They allow us to pour out in song our problems, remind ourselves of His past faithfulness, and proclaim the certainty of His victory in our lives.
Paul then mentions a third type of song—the spiritual song. These are the choruses of the church. They tend to be more personal. They are often instructional. They inspire us with biblical themes such as love, faith, and joy. They usually have fewer lyrics and repeat phrases we need to store in the armory of our hearts.
A fourth type of song is hymns. I grew up singing hymns. It was not unusual to come home from school and find my mom at her piano playing one hymn after another. She would often invite me to sing while she accompanied me. Some of the greatest doctrinal statements found in Scripture are in those hymns, as well as in the hymns of the early church. During that time, parchment was expensive, most of society was illiterate, and not everyone could own a copy of the Scriptures. The early church fathers put the essential doctrines of the Bible into hymns so everyone could have the Word of God in their hearts.
Fellowship
Fellowship is an essential way to fill the storehouses of our hearts. When we meet with others, we get an opportunity to both extend and receive God’s grace. We share testimonies, encourage one another with Scriptures, and sing songs.
Often God has used another person to remind me of His grace toward me. I can so easily slip into self-condemnation. At these times I need a brother or sister in the Lord to lift me out of it with a word of grace. Note that in Colossians 3:16, Paul said we are to teach and admonish one another.
Some people isolate themselves from the rest of God’s children. The more you isolate yourself from fellowship, however, the more exclusive and graceless you’ll become. Fellowship allows us to exercise grace, pull from the resources of grace in our hearts, and receive stockpiles of grace from Christians to restock our supplies. Proverbs 18:1 reads, “A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; he rages against all wise judgment.” Our armory of grace needs to also collect supplies of grace from others. They often give us the grace missing from our own storehouses.
Paul defines fellowship in Romans 1:11-12 when he writes, “I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, so that you may be established—that is, that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.” Fellowship is when we gather with other believers for the purpose of imparting a spiritual gift. It builds up our armories when together we’re encouraged in our mutual faith in Christ Jesus.
Sometimes fellowship itself can be a battle, can’t it? Sometimes it can seem as though everything in life is conspiring together to keep you from going to church. You can’t find the clothes you hoped to wear, your kids get into a fight, the car won’t start, you disagree with your husband, you find out someone you don’t like is going to be there, you feel too tired to go, or some other distraction impedes your way. It’s a battle, because Satan doesn’t want you to receive the necessary supply of grace waiting for you as you fellowship with the saints. One of his chief tools for draining the armory of grace is to keep you from meeting with other believers.
The Benefits of an Armory Full of Grace
God wants to fill the armory of your heart with grace so you’ll always have what you need for every situation. Rather than drawing from old, defunct, and dangerous weapons, when you go to the grace supply you’ll find strength, comfort, joy, love, hope, and everything else necessary to help you in your time of need.
Annie Johnson Flint, the woman who wrote the poem “He Giveth More Grace,” was herself a grace story. She was born in Vineland, New Jersey, to Eldon and Jean Johnson in 1866. Three years later her mother died while giving birth to her second daughter. At the same time, Annie’s father was struck down with an incurable disease and had to give up custody of his little girls. Annie and her sister were adopted and taken into the Flint home. There they grew and matured in the atmosphere of God’s grace, love, and Word. After Annie graduated from high school, she trained to become a schoolteacher. While she was still a teacher, her adoptive parents both died.
During her third year of teaching, she began to suffer from crippling pain. She was diagnosed with early onset arthritis and forced to resign her career, and became an invalid at a young age. Every day required the provision of God’s grace to accomplish even the simplest of tasks. Yet drawing from the armory of God’s grace, she wrote poems and encouraging letters and published inspirational booklets. Her life of grace ministered grace to many others, and her poems were her personal testimony of drawing from the riches of God’s grace. Many others are still ministered to by the supplies that came from the armory of her grace-filled heart.
I’m sure Annie Johnson Flint had a constant battle to keep the armory of her heart free of the toxins of resentment, bitterness, and frustration. Yet her battle was rewarded with reserves of grace that upheld her and ministered to others.2
Do you desire an armory of grace in your heart? When frustration, hard circumstances, and difficulties come knocking at your door, don’t you long to meet them with the resources of God’s grace?
It will take a battle. It will mean taking inventory of all that resides in your present armory. It will mean allowing God to clean it out. Then it will take a cooperative effort with Him to refill your heart with His grace through prayer, His Word, and fellowship with other believers.
Dear Lord, I pray that You will work in me—as it says in Philippians 2:13—to will and to do of Your good pleasure. Grant me a desire to have grace in my heart. I choose to open my heart wide to You and allow You to come in and remove and clean the toxins present there. Lead me to the supplies of the riches of Your grace. Open my arms wide to receive armloads of grace through prayer, Your Word, and fellowship. Please fill and make my heart an armory of Your grace! In the name of Jesus, amen.
For consideration:
1. How is your heart like an armory?
2. How would you describe some of the items in your armory?
3. What is your usual reaction when you’re riled?
4. What do you find most compelling about grace?
5. Can you share a time when God has used the following to minister His grace to you?
• Prayer
• Scripture
• Song
• Another Christian
6. What steps do you need to take to fill the armory of your heart with grace?