YOU ARE DESIGNED TO REIGN BY GRACE
By Bishop Mike Okonkwo
Thursday 3rd July 2025
“For if by one man’s offense death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5:17 KJV)
By one man, Adam, death held sway. Now when we talk about death, don’t just look at it in terms of cessation of breath. Death has other branches, forms and manifestations. Sickness, disease, failure, disappointment, fear – all these and every negative thing that happens to man, are forms and manifestations of the death that befell Adam after the fall. Death held sway until grace came. Grace is the unmerited, unearned, undeserved favour of God. Jesus is Grace-personified.
Romans 11:6 says; “But if it is by grace (His unmerited favor and graciousness), it is no longer conditioned on works or anything men have done. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace [it would be meaningless].” (AMPC). Every child of God, who has Christ in his life, carries grace. God’s unmerited favour rests upon your life, and that is more than enough to change any situation, no matter how bad or insurmountable it appears. Grace changes everything. This is the understanding and knowing that you must have as a child of God. It must be settled in your heart that when you appear, something must change for you. Heaven moves on your behalf.
Beloved, reading about grace or plainly knowing about grace, does not bring about any change in your life; sadly, this is the truth that most people do not like to hear. Many times, you find Christians attending all sorts of programs, conferences and events, shouting at the top of their lungs in amazement when a preacher is sharing the Word, but unfortunately, that is where it ends. They do nothing with the Word they hear, and their lives remain the same.
The Bible says it is not the hearer of the Word that is blessed, but the doer (James 1:25). However, to progress from being a hearer to a doer of the Word, one thing is critical; you must receive the Word as truth – unchanging, incontrovertible, in your Spirit. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is the secret to reigning in life. The Word must become a revelation to you. Those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness shall reign or dominate or fulfill God’s mandate on earth.
The day you received Christ, He qualified you to partake of the riches of grace. You were delivered from Adam’s nature, and now you have a new nature called Christ. Since it is a gift, you did not earn it. If you work for a gift, then it is a reward; it is no longer a gift. In Christ, you have received the gift of righteousness, and because of this, you are designed to reign.
Further Reading: Romans 11:1-11
Daily Bible Reading: Morning- Job 25-27; Evening- Acts 12