How good it is to know we are made righteous, sanctified, and saved by the grace of God! Many of God's blessings are conditional upon our obedience, but it would be a grave mistake to reduce our relationship with God to a business deal. Trusting in Jesus is is not like a monetary transaction where the exchange of money confers rights to the buyer and responsibility to the seller. We have no entitlements as children of God because we have earned them by our good standing with God or our efforts to please Him. The blessings God supplies we have not earned but received by His grace. All we deserve is judgment, wrath, and total destruction due to our wickedness, but God delights to bless those deemed righteous by His grace - as well as those who do not regard Him at all.
Those who are born again through faith in Christ and the Gospel will desire and aim to walk in God's ways, and God does reward the humble and obedient. These rewards are not dependent primarily on our efforts, but these blessings come from a good, gracious, and merciful God. There is often a visible correlation between obedience and blessing, and there are invisible, eternal guarantees God provides like salvation and fullness of joy. The blessings seen and unseen we receive from God are all of grace, free gifts God offers to all who trust in Him. Since God loves us we love Him, and because we love Him we delight to obey Him. Love is the currency of heaven and the holy motivation God gladly accepts and rewards.
This seeming dichotomy between the grace of God and our efforts is a tricky balance to strike in our minds. There is something in us which strives to meet God's conditions so the benefits may be ours, and the motivation can be more selfish than godly. The knowledge of God's grace can also distort our perspective to drift from godly disciplines to lazy and aimless conduct. We know we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies so our conduct doesn't really matter much, and the flip side is to think everything depends upon our ability to walk uprightly. Both extremes leave a person depressed: one can never measure up to God's standard no matter how he tries, and the other sees no need to even try. The truth is we can never measure up to God's perfect standard through the efforts of the flesh, but at the same time God never is looking for perfection in us. Perfection is His arena and is all of grace, and He is the one who works this in us.
See what David wrote in 2 Samuel 22:31-33: "As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the LORD is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him. 32 "For who is God, except the LORD? And who is a rock, except our God? 33 God is my strength and power, and He makes my way perfect." We might think our reception of God's blessings have all to do with our ability to meet His conditions, but then we might as well be trading money for the benefits we want. David acknowledged God's way is perfect, and because God was David's strength and power (not merely the source of it) He made David's way perfect too. Was David perfect? Hardly. He needed to offer sacrifices to atone for his sin, and Jesus needed to die on the cross and rise again so we could be justified, sanctified, and saved. God is a shield to all who trust in Him, and we could not trust Him except God help us. How great is God's grace and goodness to those who seek and trust Him! From beginning to end we are His workmanship, and He works in us to will and do of His good pleasure. What a blessing this is!
Those who are born again through faith in Christ and the Gospel will desire and aim to walk in God's ways, and God does reward the humble and obedient. These rewards are not dependent primarily on our efforts, but these blessings come from a good, gracious, and merciful God. There is often a visible correlation between obedience and blessing, and there are invisible, eternal guarantees God provides like salvation and fullness of joy. The blessings seen and unseen we receive from God are all of grace, free gifts God offers to all who trust in Him. Since God loves us we love Him, and because we love Him we delight to obey Him. Love is the currency of heaven and the holy motivation God gladly accepts and rewards.
This seeming dichotomy between the grace of God and our efforts is a tricky balance to strike in our minds. There is something in us which strives to meet God's conditions so the benefits may be ours, and the motivation can be more selfish than godly. The knowledge of God's grace can also distort our perspective to drift from godly disciplines to lazy and aimless conduct. We know we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies so our conduct doesn't really matter much, and the flip side is to think everything depends upon our ability to walk uprightly. Both extremes leave a person depressed: one can never measure up to God's standard no matter how he tries, and the other sees no need to even try. The truth is we can never measure up to God's perfect standard through the efforts of the flesh, but at the same time God never is looking for perfection in us. Perfection is His arena and is all of grace, and He is the one who works this in us.
See what David wrote in 2 Samuel 22:31-33: "As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the LORD is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him. 32 "For who is God, except the LORD? And who is a rock, except our God? 33 God is my strength and power, and He makes my way perfect." We might think our reception of God's blessings have all to do with our ability to meet His conditions, but then we might as well be trading money for the benefits we want. David acknowledged God's way is perfect, and because God was David's strength and power (not merely the source of it) He made David's way perfect too. Was David perfect? Hardly. He needed to offer sacrifices to atone for his sin, and Jesus needed to die on the cross and rise again so we could be justified, sanctified, and saved. God is a shield to all who trust in Him, and we could not trust Him except God help us. How great is God's grace and goodness to those who seek and trust Him! From beginning to end we are His workmanship, and He works in us to will and do of His good pleasure. What a blessing this is!
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