Amazing Grace #7

25 And when they had spoken the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia, 26 and from there they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled. 27 And when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. (Acts 14)

As we continue to look at God's Amazing Grace in the book of Acts, we come across this interesting phrase - that Paul and Barnabas had been commended to the Grace of God for they work that they had fulfilled - that the church at Antioch, when they sent them out as a missionary team, had said: "Father, these guys are going to need your grace to do what we're sending them out to do." and in a sense: "Guys: the only way you're going to be able to do this is by the grace of God."  The plan worked. When the team came back to Antioch, they had a lot to talk about. They had seen many Gentiles come to saving faith in Jesus Christ.  Everything wasn't perfect or easy: they had their disagreements and faced a lot of resistance from Jews and Gentiles alike, but they had a lot of stories to tell about what God had done. God's grace gives us those stories to tell. So it's no surprise that when Paul and Silas set out again in the next chapter, the chruch again "commends them to the grace of God."  We need to be willing to receive God's grace in our own lives: we need His ability to do so many things we cannot do on our own, and we also need to be willing to commend others to His grace, to all Him to do in and through them what they cannot do alone, and we are unable to do for them. Today, I commend you to God's grace.  I could use that too.