“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” Galatians 2:20-21

I don’t know about you, but if there’s one thing I can’t afford to frustrate, it’s the grace of God. God’s grace, by definition, His unmerited favor, and by application, His power in us that enables us to do what we can’t do in and of ourselves, is just way too important in my life for me to offend in any way. I’m convinced that without God’s grace in my life I wouldn’t be able to tie my own shoes. It’s that necessary! Sadly, it seems that many Christians today do indeed “frustrate” the grace of God and, in doing so, hinder the flow of God’s help into their lives. How? That revelation is found in two seemingly unrelated Bible passages that we need to take a look at.

In 2 Kings 5:1-14 we read of a man named Naaman. You’ve probably heard of his story and know that he dealt with a major health complication and, in turn, tried to complicate God’s solution to his problem. Yeah, he frustrated the grace of God. He figured that since the problem he was facing was big in his estimation that the solution should be equally as complicated. Then in Acts 15:1-20 we read how that some of the early believers in Jesus of Jewish descent demanded that the non-Jewish believers follow the rites and rituals of Judaism.

Whether these Jewish believers in Jesus realized it or not, they were advocating a “Jesus-plus” religion, and in doing so were complicating a relationship with God for these Gentile believers. They too were frustrating the grace of God! In both of these passages we see a familiar theme—people trying to complicate God’s solutions in their lives.

In this life we face challenges, and, all too often, because some of these problems are big in the moment, we imagine that it will take the most elaborate of schemes to fix the issue. Truth be known though, most often, as Naaman found out, the solution is, and always was, simple.

What’s the simple solution I speak of? If you could ask Naaman today he’d tell you the answer, “Just do what God says—period!” That’s period, no conjunctions (ands and buts) to complicate God’s functions! All the promises of God’s Word are as simple as “Yes and Amen” (2 Corinthians 1:20) because Jesus has already done the hard part.

Brothers and sisters, we need to quit trying to rework what only Christ could work in the first place and quit complicating the grace of God in our lives. God’s grace is a mighty river, but when we try to complicate His solutions, we try to funnel that grace through a garden hose and end up restricting what God desires to do in our lives. He is still a God of miracles, but He won’t compete with our solutions. Let’s let go of what we can do and allow God to do what only He can!

Greg Crum is the pastor of Calvary Temple in Lovely.