Bad to Good
I love how God takes a bad thing and uses it for good.
This morning I was reminded of this when reading in Judges 6 the Lord's instruction to Gideon to use the wood from the Asherah pole he just cut down to burn an offering to the Lord. The pole, used to worship the goddess Asherah, was converted to offer the Lord worship and bring him glory.
This should remind us of the Lord's saving and redemptive work in our lives. On a large scale, God took our lives broken by sin (a bad thing) and saved and redeemed us through Christ in order to honor and worship him (a good thing).
But even in our day-to-day lives we should be conscious of the redemptive potential in every situation. Pastor Matt Chandler says we should look for shadows of the Gospel in our daily lives.
Here's a question: If the Lord is in the business of taking bad and using it for good, then what's my part?
Maybe it's praying for a situation, or offering forgiveness, or showing kindness, or taking a risk on someone or something, or obeying that prompting from God, or spending more time with family, etc.
Whatever it is let's participate in God's work of taking bad and using it for good.
"You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." (Genesis 50:20) Joseph to his brothers after they sold him into Egyptian slavery.
“Debt is Dumb”
Stairway to Heaven
"God does not simply create the gift (The Gospel) and offer it to us, if we will only climb the stairway to heaven to get it; he brings it down to us, uncurls our ungrateful fingers, and places it in our hands." p. 108, The Gospel-Driven Life, Horton
To get something for nothing doesn't make sense to us. We are wired from an early age that if we do good things, we get good things. We carry this mindset into adulthood.
But the Gospel turns everything upside down. The Gospel says we get what we don't deserve. We get good (grace) even when we don't do good (sin). This idea violates every sense of justice in me. Good people should get good things, bad people shouldn't.
Through faith in Jesus Christ, grace is extended to us not because we are good people. We cannot stand on our own goodness, or our righteousness. No matter how good we are we cannot climb the stairway of heaven to access God's grace.
God lovingly stoops down to us. Pays the price for our sin and does for us what we could not do for ourselves: makes us righteous before God.
So, we must repent of our badness, but we also must repent of our goodness.
And rather than climb the stairs, we must simply receive the gift by faith.
Costly Grace
God's grace is free but it wasn't cheap. It's freely given to those who have faith in Jesus, but it cost God everything. I cheapen grace when I think it's a license to sin. "I can do whatever I want, God will forgive me." That's cheap grace. I also cheapen grace when I think grace is extended to me because of my discipline, morality, good deeds, etc. "Because I live a good life God will show me grace." More cheap grace.
To cheapen grace is to deny the deadliness of sin. If I live however I want (license to sin) I'm really saying that sin has no consequence or effect. If I live a moral, upright life in order to attain grace I'm really saying that I can control and conquer sin on my own merit.
It's when we truly understand sin's deadliness that we understand the amazing grace of God. We understand that grace doesn't move us toward wayward living, nor does it move us toward moralism; Grace moves us toward a Savior. Unrighteous living doesn't save, and righteous living doesn't save. Jesus saves.
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