Grace Under Fire

By Byron Wicker –

Dear People Who Keep Company With God:

My Bible titles Psalm 45 “The Glories of the Messiah and His Bride.” That is a powerful title and speaks volumes about where we are headed. The darkness Isaiah saw is coming upon the earth and God is preparing us for His glory (Isaiah 60:1-2). There are four things that are foundational in this Psalm and essential for us, they are grace, truth, humility and righteousness. These are necessary for us to experience His glory and in many ways, speak of the “clothing woven with gold” and the “robes of many colors” that we are to be clothed with (Ps. 45:13-14).

The Psalm begins with our heart, what is in our heart will come out of our mouths. Jesus emphasized the importance of this in Matthew 12:33-37. It goes on to say concerning the Lord Jesus that, “Grace is poured upon your lips; therefore God has blessed you forever.” (Ps.45:2). The key to being blessed is speaking with grace. Our words will open heaven around us or attract the demons of hell. We have been repeatedly told recently, “You will get what you say.” Unfortunately, speaking gracefully is not something we do naturally.

We may speak gracefully when things are going our way, but when
pressure comes it is another thing. History is full of stories of
marriages, families, friendships, businesses, churches and even entire
nations that have been torn apart because of ungraceful responses in
times of stress.

I grew up in a home and culture where anger and toxic emotional
responses were the typical reactions in pressure situations. I almost
destroyed my marriage because of this behavior. One day the Lord spoke
to me and told me that I would lose Becky if I did not learn to
properly deal with and express my emotions. That is when I first began
to learn that grace is more than a means of salvation; it is also a
real power and the answer for trouble (Zech. 4:7). I discovered that
in order to have a graceful response, I needed grace and you get grace
by humbling yourself and facing the truth about yourself. Then grace,
if you let it, will train and equip you with soundness of mind,
self-control and appropriate expression of emotions.   For the grace
of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, 12 teaching us
that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly,
righteously, and godly in the present age. Titus 2:11-12

The word soberly is sophronos in the Greek. It comes from two words;
sozo, which we know means saved, healed and delivered and phren, which
is a word for the mind. It means a sound mind and healthy emotions. It
is used as an adverb in this verse and it implies to act in a
responsible manner, sensibly, wisely, being in self-control and in
full possession of intellectual and emotional faculties. In these
tense times that we live it really will be those with the cooler heads
that will prevail.

Byron Wicker was saved in the mid 1970’s after having an encounter with the supernatural power of God. His Christian life and ministry is marked by dreams, visions, revelations of the Lord and heavenly encounters. He has been deeply involved in and impacted by various renewal outpourings since the 1970’s. After a successful engineering career he felt called to enter the pastoral ministry in the early 1990’s and is currently the lead pastor of RiverLife Fellowship Church in Mooresville, NC.  He has been involved in starting a ministry training school, a K-12 Christian Academy, healing rooms, a wellness center and church planting.