I Just Don’t Deserve It!

REFERENCE: Acts 15:10 So why are you now challenging God by burdening the Gentile believers with a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors were able to bear? 11 We believe that we are all saved the same way, by the undeserved grace of the Lord Jesus."

Observation: We are not very good with this "grace" thing. Right at the beginning of the church people wanted to know what someone should be required to do if they were a Christian and for all of church history it has been the same issue"”what can we make people do. We just can’t get our brain around the truly radical concept that God accepts us just as we are in spite of our weaknesses and failures without us doing a thing to earn it"”nothing. We find it so hard to grasp the concept that faith alone can bring us salvation.

Of course, it is understandable. Even the non-christian world around us makes it clear that we are what we do, not who we are in relationship with. It takes a whole new way of thinking to understand grace, but it is exactly what knowing God is all about.

Application/Confession: I am a doer. I am learning to rest in God’s grace but it is so very, very hard. I keep thinking that if I try harder, work a few extra hours for Him then I will be more fully loved. God is gently breaking me from this works mentality, but it is so hard. It is so a part of who I am and how I see the world.

PRAYER: Lord, captivate me with your love. Help me to rest in who and what I am in You and in You alone. Please save me from myself. Teach me to slow down and get off the works treadmill.