And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee.
2 Cor 12:9
Christ supports his people under a weight of inward troubles and discouragements. Often, their “heart and flesh fail them,” but then “God is the strength of their heart,” as in Psalm 73:26. They may have a weight of guilt pressing them down, making their backs bend, and their spirits sink, but Christ takes it off and gives them a pardon as they cast their burden upon Him. It is as if He takes the soul, as one marries a widow under a burden of debt, and pays it all off. When creditors come to Christ’s spouse, she carries them to her husband, confesses the debt, declares she is unable to pay, and lays it all upon Him. Sometimes, due to carelessness, the Christian may lose their discharge, and when the law takes the opportunity to proceed against them for a debt already paid, and they cannot find their discharge, they are distressed. Many arrows go through the heart now, and they read and acknowledge the long accounts laid before them. Often, they see the officers coming to apprehend them, and the prison door open to receive them. Yet, the everlasting arms of the Mediator are underneath them, and they rely on the great Surety, which keeps them from sinking utterly under discouragements. They may also have a weight of strong lusts pressing upon them, and a body of death upon them. A leg or an arm of death, if I may so speak, would be a terrible load, and sometimes one lively lust lies so heavy on a child of God that they can no more remove it than a child could throw a giant from off him. Yet, their support is from that root which bears them, from the everlasting arm that is underneath them, and “His grace is sufficient for them,” as in 2 Cor. 12:9. The great stay of the believer is not the grace of God within them, which is a well whose streams sometimes run dry, but it is the grace of God without them, the grace that is in Jesus Christ, which is an ever-flowing fountain to which the believer can never come amiss.
Thomas Boston. Union with Christ.
