A simple principle: If you don’t work, you don’t get paid. Right? That’s how it works for the most part in our world. It’s engrained into us to the point where sometimes people have difficulty accepting help from others, even when they genuinely need it!
Now look at how God deals with us. In our sin and separation from God’s blessings, we genuinely need God to intervene in our lives. We need his help. We cannot get to this “righteousness of God” through the things we do. So God gives righteousness to people by faith in Jesus and through his death and resurrection.
Somewhere in the back of our heads there’s a little flicker of doubt. “If you don’t work, you don’t get paid.” “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” And other little axioms stir in our brains. We start to think, “Man, I gotta do something to earn this!”
We can’t.
You want proof? Paul says to consider Abraham. If anyone in human history should have been able to earn righteousness is should have been him. He’s the father of the three great monotheistic religions in the world (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), he followed God’s call to leave his home, he trusted God’s promise to have a child in old age, and God gave him the Promised Land. That’s impressive! What does the Bible say? “Abraham believed God” and then God counted that faith as righteousness.
That faith moved Abraham to do great things. God worked mightily through him. But the things Abraham did didn’t make him righteous; it was the faith that moved him to act. Righteousness from God was already there.
What would happen if we dropped the idea that if you don’t work, you don’t get paid in our dealings with God? (Only in this one area, because we are to work for our pay to the best of our ability in this world!) How would that impact our devotion, our love, our trust in God? How would it impact our treatment of other people? Would it change our behavior so that the world sees us differently? (I think it would.)
Jesus has earned our salvation, and gives it to us as a free gift by faith. (He even gives us the faith by the power of the Holy Spirit when you get right down to it!) That’s a message that both humbles us because we were unable to do it on our own, but also builds us up because we were so loved. That humility moves us to accept and care for others who are just like us – unable to save themselves – but also builds us up, drives us even, to reach them because Jesus loves them just as he loves us!
Father, thank you for giving me faith and making me righteous through that faith in Jesus. I still want to earn your love sometimes, help me grow up and not have such foolish thoughts. Help me to rest my salvation fully in your hands and then use me to show your salvation to others. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
Now look at how God deals with us. In our sin and separation from God’s blessings, we genuinely need God to intervene in our lives. We need his help. We cannot get to this “righteousness of God” through the things we do. So God gives righteousness to people by faith in Jesus and through his death and resurrection.
Somewhere in the back of our heads there’s a little flicker of doubt. “If you don’t work, you don’t get paid.” “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” And other little axioms stir in our brains. We start to think, “Man, I gotta do something to earn this!”
We can’t.
You want proof? Paul says to consider Abraham. If anyone in human history should have been able to earn righteousness is should have been him. He’s the father of the three great monotheistic religions in the world (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), he followed God’s call to leave his home, he trusted God’s promise to have a child in old age, and God gave him the Promised Land. That’s impressive! What does the Bible say? “Abraham believed God” and then God counted that faith as righteousness.
That faith moved Abraham to do great things. God worked mightily through him. But the things Abraham did didn’t make him righteous; it was the faith that moved him to act. Righteousness from God was already there.
What would happen if we dropped the idea that if you don’t work, you don’t get paid in our dealings with God? (Only in this one area, because we are to work for our pay to the best of our ability in this world!) How would that impact our devotion, our love, our trust in God? How would it impact our treatment of other people? Would it change our behavior so that the world sees us differently? (I think it would.)
Jesus has earned our salvation, and gives it to us as a free gift by faith. (He even gives us the faith by the power of the Holy Spirit when you get right down to it!) That’s a message that both humbles us because we were unable to do it on our own, but also builds us up because we were so loved. That humility moves us to accept and care for others who are just like us – unable to save themselves – but also builds us up, drives us even, to reach them because Jesus loves them just as he loves us!
Father, thank you for giving me faith and making me righteous through that faith in Jesus. I still want to earn your love sometimes, help me grow up and not have such foolish thoughts. Help me to rest my salvation fully in your hands and then use me to show your salvation to others. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
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