March 16, 2023
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I've got this card in my wallet that has bailed me out on several occasions. It has the simple word "Treasurer" on it. No, it has nothing to do with any offices that I hold; it's my bank card. Okay, so I go to the money machine at my bank, the ATM. You can just stick your card in it and you get the money you need, provided there are some resources in your account to cover it. I guess the faster paced our lives get the more we need these quick fixes. I mean, we need instant access to the resources we need.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How to Access All You Need."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Hebrews 4, and I'm going to read a verse that might be familiar to you in verse 16. "Let us, then, approach the Throne of Grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." There you go. You just heard about God's treasury account, and this is His instant access plan. You come to His Throne with confidence it says; that's the invitation.
Now, the word confidence, if you look it up in the original Greek that the New Testament was written in, literally means "outspokenness" or "plainness of speech." And it's often used to describe seriousness in the presence of someone of high rank. So the first invitation, the way that you access God's grace for your particular need - the card you stick in - is to come to the Throne of Grace talking straight, reverently but honestly.
So when you come to pray, don't come with all your religious rhetoric. You come with straight talk just like you really are. You go to the treasury machine in our neighborhood and you don't pretend you're rolling in money. I go there and I know I'm broke. Well, I'm honest about that. It's my broke that brought me to the machine; that's why I'm there. This giving isn't automatic. You do have to go to the machine. You do have to approach the Throne of Grace with confidence. And you come, talking plainly and honestly about your need, about your sin, about your feelings, your doubts, you're honest.
When you do that, you find grace. The word found there means to discover or come upon. Surprise! I didn't expect to find this much grace! When you come and honestly unload your need on the Lord at His Throne of Grace He gives surprising grace. You say, "I didn't know there was grace available like this before." And it says when that happens it will help us in our time of need. And in our time of need, that phrase in the Greek language, was one word meaning "well timed." God's grace will come to you in a personal, customized way at just the right time.
The word "help" there is used only one other time in the Bible, in Acts 27, when they had to pull ropes underneath a ship to keep it from coming apart during a storm. And the word rope is that word help. It's what holds you together during your storm - God's grace. So let's put it all together. God invites you to come confidently, talking straight. And we come to His Throne so that we can find surprising grace to hold us together during our storm. Wow!
Now, I wonder if you have ever experienced the grace of God for yourself. You know it begins - your first approach to the Throne of God - when you come to Him with the sin of a lifetime and say, "Jesus' death on the cross is my only hope of having my sins erased." You don't come to God because you deserve it, because of what you've got in your moral bank. You come bankrupt and He says, "I will pour out My grace." It is amazing grace! If you have never experienced that, I hope you will today. Say, today, "God, I want today...I want my record to be clean. I want to go to heaven. I want to be with You forever."
If I can help you begin that relationship with Him, then would you go to our website at ANewStory.com. I hope you will. See, at the Throne of Grace, you'll find powerful grace. But you've got to go for the grace this moment requires. And you'll find there a bottomless account supplied by the resources of Almighty God. You don't ever have to be emotionally or spiritually broke again.