Then Asa cried out to the LORD his God, “O LORD, no one but you can help the powerless against the mighty! Help us, O LORD our God, for we trust in you alone. It is in your name that we have come against this vast horde. O LORD, you are our God; do not let mere men prevail against you!” - 2 Chronicles 14:11
How often have you looked at impossible situations and said, “Unless God does something, it’s all over?” Asa had everything against him—an Ethiopian army of a million men and three hundred chariots (2 Chronicles 14:9). But in the middle of that impossible situation, Asa cried out to the Lord. God interfered with his grace and gave Asa victory over his enemies.
Obedience releases grace. How is it that Asa “remained fully committed to the Lord throughout his life” (2 Chronicles 15:17), when his father and grandfather were not such good examples? I call it the interference of grace! God interferes in Satan’s working and brings grace to bear on grim realities. The notion that evil begets evil must at some point give way to the interference of grace, or the consequences would be catastrophic.
When Zerah the Ethiopian waged war against Asa, God fought for Asa when he was vastly out-numbered and virtually powerless. On Asa’s return from victory, the word of the Lord came through Azariah, “The Lord will stay with you as long as you stay with him! Whenever you seek him, you will find him. But if you abandon him, he will abandon you” (2 Chronicles 15:2). Faith and obedience were reiterated as God’s prerequisites for his interference of grace. When we trust the Lord and obey him, he will interfere in our impossible situations with his grace. That’s the kind of interference we can welcome!
For Further Study: 2 Chronicles 26:1-23
Excerpted from The One Year Devotions for Women, Copyright ©2000 by Jill Briscoe. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.
For more from Jill Briscoe, please visit TellingtheTruth.org.
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