Wednesday June 19, 2017

 

Every God-believing person, and all religious belief systems have something in common; it is the tendency to negotiate with God. You have assumed you can negotiate with God if you have ever prayed the following prayers: God if you will… I promise to always… or God if you will…I promise to never… God however does not negotiate because He does not want something FROM you. In actuality, He wants something FOR you. The problem that arises when we try to negotiate with God is that we do not have anything that we can offer him in exchange. You might think that your life is yours but the Bible says that God has determined the number of our days. You might think that your money and possessions belong to you. However, all we get to do is manage them for as long as God allows us to then they are passed along to someone else. Once again, God does not negotiate because He does not want anything from us; God wants something for us. This dynamic is called grace; it is God’s unmerited favor. This is not mere mercy, this is greater than mercy; mercy is forgiveness and having the negative consequences of our bad behavior erased. Grace on the other hand goes one step beyond. Not only is the penalty of our actions removed, we are rewarded with that which we do not deserve.

 

Few people explain this dynamic better than the Apostle Paul in the Book of Ephesians and not because of his eloquence with words but because he himself was the recipient of God’s grace. If ever there was a person who did not deserve to receive God’s grace it had to be Paul. Prior to writing the Book of Ephesians, Paul persecuted anyone who chose to follow Jesus. It was Paul who approved the stoning death of Stephen, the first martyr of the Christian faith. Christians were deathly afraid of Paul yet God decided to extend His grace towards him. God chose the most unlikely of men to bring us the message of grace.

 

Ephesians 2:8-9 NLT

 

God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.