“YOU THEN, MY son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:1–2). This is vitally important: “be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” Many think that a doctrine of grace does not produce strong men, that it produces weak and dependent men. Some doctrines of grace do produce weak men, but this is not “the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” It produces strong men, like Paul, the greatest advocate of grace. His impress is upon the ages. He could say, “I am what I am by the grace of God.” He was the greatest human who ever lived, and yet he lived by grace.
Jesus is a strong man creating strong men around Him. That is what Paul advocated in Timothy: “Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” In other words, the strong man is the one who is creating strong men around him; he is creating creators. The weakness of some so-called strong men is that they cannot create strong men to take over when they pass out. Then all their work collapses, and the strong man is shown by results to be a weak man. “It is better to get ten men to work than to do the work of ten men.”
The strength of the visitation evangelism campaign was that it taught laymen to teach others—and won them to winning. The strength of the revival in the Central Congo was that the converts at the end of the week stood before the altar and pledged themselves out of gratitude to go back to win their families, their villages, their tribes, and then the neighboring tribes. And they did it! People right out of the Bush became flaming evangelists of the good news. The grace that trusted the leaders makes the leaders make leaders out of their followers.
O Lord Christ, make me strong in the grace that entrusts to others what has been entrusted to me. Create in me a strong faith in Thee and in others. Make me to be a maker of men. Then and then only I shall be strong. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Grace makes me strong because grace makes me humble enough to receive.
