The Selfish Side of Grace

 

1 John 1: 5, 6. This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

 

          I wonder if we truly want the gift of salvation that God has given to us. I believe that most of us do. Any way, I believe that many of us want to be forgiven of our sins but we don't want to completely give ourselves to God. I feel that for most of us we miss the point and the true meaning for Jesus going to the cross. Yes, I believe that He went so that He could redeem us from our sins, but the reason that He had to do that, was so that we could have a relationship with the Father.

 

          God is perfect and hates sin, so without the righteousness of Christ living in us and the santifying power of the Holy Spirit working in us to make us Holy as He is Holy, we cannot have a relationship with God. If we desire fellowship with God then we must be pure, and that can only happen if Christ has truly been recieved into our heart. If I say that I love God, then I am saying that I love what He stands for. And since we know that God is Holy, righteous, and true, and takes no part in evil, then I also should seek after those things that are Holy, righteous, and true.

 

         If I am in fellowship with God then it just seems natural that His moral character would be reflected in whatever I did. If I have things in my life that would be considered wrong then I would be going against the moral character of God and therefore would be in darkness and not in fellowship with God. God will not compromise His holiness to accomadate sin, so if we live in sin or apart from whats morally right then we lie and do not practice the truth.

 

         It breaks my heart when people cheapen the grace and insult the intelligence of our mighty God. How dare we think that Christ came for the sole purpose of shedding His blood just so our sins can be forgiven. Do we honestly think that we can get away with sin because Jesus died for us. We'll even premeditate sin and still do it thinking that we'll be covered by grace. And the awesome thing about God is that when we repent of our sins, He will forgive us.

 

         Let's look at God's side in all this. He created us to fellowship with Him, and we broke that fellowship when we disobeyed in the garden. So God, in His everlasting love for us, came in the likeness of man, and took our punishment which we deserved, upon Himself, so that He could wash us clean from our sin making it possible for Him to be able to have a relationship with us. God wants to fellowship with us and if we think that He came only so we can recieve life in heaven, we are saddly mistaken. God came to take away our sins and our sinful nature so that we can have fellowship with Him.

 

John 10: 10. The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

 

          Life here refers to eternal life, God's life. With Christ, our life on earth can be of the highest quality. As we seek God we find His unfailing love and in return, we seek for ways to please Him because He has taken care of all our needs. He has become our Father.

I can't help but to think of how selfish we can be sometimes. When we think that it's all about us, we couldn't be further from the truth. It's not about us but rather it's all about Him. If you are someone who does not have time of devotion and fellowship with God, then I would like to ask, why? Do you really want God? What is it about God that doesn't excite you? I know that God wants you, He wants you so much that He came and died for you. Are you willing to die to yourself and surrender all that you are to God?

 

James 4: 8. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

 

         In order to draw near to God we need to seperate ourselves from sin and immoral decisions. We need to live clean and moral lives that reflect His image. If God means anything at all to us, and we really want to know Him, and we really are thankful for the grace that He has given to us, and if we truly are in love with God, then we must take time to get to know Him and to be in fellowship with Him.

 

John 15: 13- 15. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.

 

         Take notice what Jesus said, all things He heard from His Father He made known to us. How will we know if we don't spend time in His word. We also won't know what He commands of us if we don't spend time in His word. If we trust that our bibles are the inspired word of God then it only seems apropriate that we would spend time in His word (the bible) so that we would know what He has to say. Then we would know what is expected of us so that we can be obedient to His commandments, and then we would be called His friends. Again, are we so selfish that we can't make time for God when He did nothing but make time for us. I wonder, when Jesus said "It is Finished" if He would have continued the sentence, would it have went something like this "It is finished, Father the work You gave Me to do so that you could have fellowship with these, Your children, I have done.

God bless and keep you, BUD