The first thing is something I came across a week ago while reading Romans 4 where it talks about Abraham being the father of many people:
We call Abraham "father" not because he got God's attention by living like a saint, but because God made something out of Abraham when he was a nobody. Isn't that what we've always read in Scripture, God saying to Abraham, "I set you up as father of many peoples"? Abraham was first named "father" and then became a father because he dared to trust God to do what only God could do: raise the dead to life, with a word make something out of nothing. When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn't do but on what God said he would do. And so he was made father of a multitude of peoples. God himself said to him, "You're going to have a big family, Abraham!"Abraham didn't focus on his own impotence and say, "It's hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a child." Nor did he survey Sarah's decades of infertility and give up. He didn't tiptoe around God's promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said. That's why it is said, "Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right." But it's not just Abraham; it's also us! The same thing gets said about us when we embrace and believe the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless. The sacrificed Jesus made us fit for God, set us right with God.
This passage almost took my breath away. Isn't this what we face every day? The decision to trust God to come through for us or to rely on our own efforts? Earlier on in the chapter it says, "Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the turning point. He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own." It also says that Abraham was first called "father" then became a father because he dared to trust! I really challenged me to think about whether It really trust God to come through on the promises he gave me; I feel like God is asking. "Will you hold on to that and trust me even when it seems impossible?"
Risk
The second thing I came across was from Matthew 25 from the parable of the stewards. The owner leaves three different people with different amounts of money and then returns to see how they've invested what he left them. To the last steward who didn't invest but hid the money out of fear of losing it, the owner says:
"That's a terrible way to live! It's criminal to live cautiously like that! If you knew I was after the best, why did you do less than the least? The least you could have done would have been to invest the sum with the bankers, where at least I would have gotten a little interest. Take the thousand and give it to the one who risked the most. And get rid of this "play-it-safe" who won't go out on a limb. Throw him out into utter darkness.
I won't lie, this kind of scared me when I read it, but I realized that God doesn't want us to play it safe, but to take risks, I think this is how we show that we trust Him. We can't live in fear of what might or might not happen, but get out there and give it all we've got, and trust God to do something with it.
Grace
The third thing I came across while reading the book Transforming Grace, by Jerry Bridges. The whole book is an unveiling of the heart of the gospel, that is, grace- what it is, how to live by it, and that most christians today live according to a works rather than grace centered gospel. He explains that living my grace can sometimes cause people to ask the same question Paul was faced with in his day, "If God doesn't count my sin against me should I just keep sining cause where sin increases, grace increases all the more?" His and Paul's answers are both "No". He explains that those who truly know God make every effort to abstain from sin, that the main contributors towards obedience are love and reverence for God. He goes on to describe reverence as "a sense of profound awe, respect, and devotion. It is a recognition of God's intrinsic worthiness, the infinite majesty of His being, and the infinite perfection of His character."
He continues to describe how grace motivates him to obedience,
"Because of who He is and What He is, God is infinitely worthy of my most diligent and loving obedience, even if I never receive a single blessing from His hand. The fact is, of course, I have received innumerable blessings from Him. But His worthiness is intrinsic within Himself; it is not conditioned on the number of blessings you or I receive from Him...God is worthy of my loving obedience because of who He is, not because of what He does...Our motivation to obey and serve God cannot rise to such heights until we learn to live daily by grace and to experience freedom each day from the bondage of the performance treadmill. I believe a genuine heart response to the worthiness of God is the highest possible motivation for obedience and service to God. But we cannot "break through" to that level of motivation until we are first motivated by His grace, mercy, and love. We cannot be free to think about God's worthiness and God's glory as long as we are struggling to earn our own acceptance with Him."
This is powerful truth to the church today. Sometime I sit in church and wish I could shake people, make them see that God is worthy, that is why we believe, that is why we worship and serve Him. Creation knows it, it declares His glory day and night, but his people, to whom He's given His very spirit fail to recognize His glory- Oh I wish I could really see it, I would not sin so easily. It's like that song says, "Turn your face upon Jesus, look full in his glorious face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace." C.S. Lewis says the same in The Weight of Glory,
"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased"
It is true, we are offered so much by God, not just salvation but sonship, He saved us to rule with Him. But over and above everything, we live for His glory, we love Him and worship Him because we see that He is infinitely worthy, we cannot help ourselves. I once went to an art gallery in London and saw a painting that took my breath away, literally. It was so beautiful I couldn't speak and I couldn't take my eyes off of it. It wasn't just the colors, but it carried so much, peace and freedom (I think), anyways, God is infinitely more beautiful, the trouble is that I'm often so preoccupied with myself that I don't see it. It is the same trouble with the world, so narrow focused, so selfish, we miss the big picture, we miss the true glory. I'm praying to be able to see, to be able to live by grace not merit, to truly understand God's love.
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