The Benefits of an Armory Full of Grace

God wants to fill the armory of your heart with grace so you’ll always have what you need for every situation. Rather than drawing from old, defunct, and dangerous weapons, when you go to the grace supply you’ll find strength, comfort, joy, love, hope, and everything else necessary to help you in your time of need.

Annie Johnson Flint, the woman who wrote the poem “He Giveth More Grace,” was herself a grace story. She was born in Vineland, New Jersey, to Eldon and Jean Johnson in 1866. Three years later her mother died while giving birth. At the same time, Annie’s father was struck down with an incurable disease and had to give up custody of his little girls. Annie and her sister were adopted and taken into the Flint home. There they grew and matured in the atmosphere of God’s grace, love, and Word. After Annie graduated from high school, she trained to become a schoolteacher. While she was still a teacher, her adoptive parents both died.

During her third year of teaching, she began to suffer from crippling pain. She was diagnosed with early onset arthritis, forced to resign her career, and became an invalid at a young age. Every day required the provision of God’s grace to accomplish even the simplest of tasks. Yet drawing from the armory of God’s grace, she wrote poems and encouraging letters and published inspirational booklets. Her life of grace ministered grace to many others, and her poems were her personal testimony of drawing from the riches of God’s grace. Many others are still ministered to by the supplies that came from the armory of her grace-filled heart.

I’m sure Annie Johnson Flint had a constant battle to keep the armory of her heart free of the toxins of resentment, bitterness, and frustration. Yet her battle was rewarded with reserves of grace that upheld her and ministered to others.

Do you desire an armory of grace in your heart? When frustration, hard circumstances, and difficulties come knocking at your door, don’t you long to meet them with the resources of God’s grace?

It will take a battle. It will mean taking inventory of all that resides in your present armory. It will mean allowing God to clean it out. Then it will take a cooperative effort with Him to refill your heart with His grace through prayer, His Word, and fellowship with other believers.