In 2 Corinthians 1:12 Paul said, “For our boasting is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in singleness and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world, and more abundantly toward you.” We should not think that we need grace only to go to work. We need grace in the way that we conduct ourselves all the time. People in the worldly society always play politics, but we cannot do this. We must conduct ourselves by singleness and sincerity. We must be so simple, so strict. When we say yes, we mean yes. When we say no, we mean no. Also, we do not conduct ourselves by man’s fleshly wisdom. In today’s world people always do things by their wisdom. But the apostles conducted themselves not by human wisdom but by the grace of God.
When I came into the work in 1933, the Lord impressed me to learn to be single and sincere and not to play any politics among the co-workers or encounter anything by my wisdom. This is what it means to conduct ourselves by God’s grace. By God’s grace means by God. We should conduct ourselves by the processed, consummated God as the life-giving Spirit. This is why Paul said we must do everything according to the Spirit (Gal. 5:16, 25; Rom. 8:4). This is to conduct ourselves by the processed God as the Spirit, who is the very grace.
Paul told the Corinthians that his coming to them a second time was so that they would have a second grace, a double grace (2 Cor. 1:15). All of the co-workers have to realize that their going to a certain place must be a grace. Your visitation is a grace because you bring God there. You bring God there because you are God there in life and nature but not in the Godhead. If you go to a place as Judas, who betrayed Christ, that would mean that your visitation is evil. When we go to visit any place, we should not exercise our wisdom; we should conduct ourselves only in singleness and sincerity by the grace of God. Then we can be assured that our going is a grace, and this grace is God.
Second Corinthians 4:15 says, “For all things are for your sakes that the grace which has abounded through the greater number may cause the thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God.” We want to see the increase, because the grace abounds and is more greatly manifested through a greater number. With only ten saints, the abounding grace cannot be manifested so much and the thanksgiving cannot abound. When the number is greater, the grace is manifested more and the thanksgiving for the grace is abounding to the glory of God. The increase in number should not be our boast. It is for the increase of the grace to produce the increase and the abounding thanksgiving to God, to the glory of God.
In 2 Corinthians 6:1 Paul entreated the believers not to receive God’s grace in vain. Not to receive the grace of God in vain, according to the context, means not to remain in any condition that is a distraction from God, but to be brought back to Him. It is wrong to have the presence of God and to enjoy God in vain.
Second Corinthians reveals the surpassing grace of God given to the Macedonian churches by God, which was the cause of their liberality in giving (8:1-2; 9:14). The Macedonians were very poor. They were constrained financially, but when they heard that the Jewish brothers in Palestine lacked food and clothing, they gave with liberality. The surpassing grace caused them to have the liberality. Thus, their liberality was a grace and an expression of God.