When you were a kid, I am sure that you imagined you were all sorts of things. Maybe you were a professional football player scoring the Super Bowl winning touchdown or maybe you were the last man up in the bottom of the ninth inning of the World Series and you hit the winning home run. Maybe you imagined you were a rich man and you could just play all day long.
While we are imagining things, I want you to imagine for a moment, the possibility that you could EARN God's favor. Imagine what that would look like. Imagine the hectic pace at which you would live trying to chase the standard set by others. Imagine the mental torture that would plague you every single night as you try to sleep but can't because you keep wondering if you made a difference with everything you did. Imagine how complicated your life would be over time as you constantly compared yourself to others you believed were living more righteously than you because they had done more. All the while, you never even know who they are behind closed doors.
Do you really want to serve a God that loves you based on the way you act? Do you really want God to love you based on where you stand morally, relative to a vast majority of other people? Do you really want God to judge you based on the thoughts that rattle around inside your head every single day?
I don't know about you, but I am thankful we don't serve a god like that. Our God is perfect, and through His perfection, He knew better than to give us a key performance indicator (KPI for short-my boss would be proud for the reference) for daily life. For if our lives did consist of God's KPI's, we wouldn't last a year without completely self destructing.
In God's perfection, He gave us an open invitation to come in from the storms of life and be sheltered by His love. Through grace, He gave us a passing grade on a test that without His help we would never, ever hope to pass or even be prepared to take. In His perfection, He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to take the test for us. He not only takes the test for us, He gives us a chance to rest.
While we are imagining things, I want you to imagine for a moment, the possibility that you could EARN God's favor. Imagine what that would look like. Imagine the hectic pace at which you would live trying to chase the standard set by others. Imagine the mental torture that would plague you every single night as you try to sleep but can't because you keep wondering if you made a difference with everything you did. Imagine how complicated your life would be over time as you constantly compared yourself to others you believed were living more righteously than you because they had done more. All the while, you never even know who they are behind closed doors.
Do you really want to serve a God that loves you based on the way you act? Do you really want God to love you based on where you stand morally, relative to a vast majority of other people? Do you really want God to judge you based on the thoughts that rattle around inside your head every single day?
I don't know about you, but I am thankful we don't serve a god like that. Our God is perfect, and through His perfection, He knew better than to give us a key performance indicator (KPI for short-my boss would be proud for the reference) for daily life. For if our lives did consist of God's KPI's, we wouldn't last a year without completely self destructing.
In God's perfection, He gave us an open invitation to come in from the storms of life and be sheltered by His love. Through grace, He gave us a passing grade on a test that without His help we would never, ever hope to pass or even be prepared to take. In His perfection, He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to take the test for us. He not only takes the test for us, He gives us a chance to rest.
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