Indescribable Gift

 DEVOTION

THE 2^ND LETTER TO THE CORINTHIANS

INDESCRIBABLE GIFT

2 Cor 9:12-15

12 This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God's people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. 13 Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. 14 And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. 15 Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

NIV

Paul continues with this concept of their giving resulting in everything giving thanks to God, in fact, he says it is overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. The first thing that strikes a chord with us, is that whatever we do, whether that be giving money to meet the needs of others, or doing something else in some tangible way, God is the one who should be thanked. The point of being of any service to someone is so that God will be praised. We are also told that we should not do things for the praise of men, but for the praise from God. It is difficult not to accept praise from men, for that seems to be the natural state of the world. Even in the church, people tend to praise the pastor for how good his sermon was. It just seems that is what is expected and it is uncomfortable to accept praise for service to God. What Paul is saying is that in the prayers of people their hearts will go out to others because of the surpassing grace God has given them. That is when people see how God has bestowed his surpassing grace on someone, they cannot help but praise God. What does it mean to have the surpassing or exceeding grace of God, which does not do justice to the Greek? To be the recipient of the grace of God that goes beyond the usual mark is almost incomprehensible. Just to experience the grace of God is more than we deserve and yet Paul says it is possible to experience God grace beyond what we normally think, that is exceeding grace, and when we think of this Greek word used as grace, we cannot help to think it means God’s divine influence on our heart and mind, and how that exceeding amount of influence, in this case, is reflected in our life. Just his normal amount of influence would be more than enough, but to experience an exceeding amount of his influence is an indescribable, or unspeakable, gift. That is when we experience that much of his influence in our lives, it is beyond description, we cannot even find the words that would define it, or we would be speechless, unable to even talk about this surpassing grace of God. We are not even sure what the reflection in our lives would look like because of his grace that is far beyond normal. However, what we do know is that if and when God does bestow that much grace on us, we will know it, and what happens, as a result, will be evident, even if is it indescribable.