by Jacob Ninan
That God should show favour towards undeserving sinners seems unbelievable and almost fantastic. "For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly" (Rom.5:6). It is very difficult for many people to believe that they could be forgiven, not because of anything they have accomplished as most religions teach, but because Someone else has died in their place. But grace is the expression of God's love for us. His righteousness and justice demanded that our sins would need to be punished. But such was His love towards those whom He had created that He took the punishment on Himself by letting His only Son, Jesus, die so that now He could forgive us our sins. Now He does not ask us to reach any standard of life before we can qualify for His grace, but He accepts us in the state where we are, when we acknowledge our sinful condition honestly and receive salvation freely as a gift from Jesus.
On one side grace looks to be too good to be true, but on another side it looks very attractive for many people—if there is nothing we need to do from our side, then we can live how we like and God's grace will always cover for us! But that is to totally miss the context of God's grace. God's ultimate purpose for offering us grace is to save us from our sins, not just to forgive us our sins but also to save us from the power of sin in our lives. If we want to live our old sinful ways and there is not repentance on our part, then this grace is not available for us. God wants to bridge the gap between Him and us which has come about because of our sins, and grace is His solution for that. It is not a licence for sin (Jude.4). He not only wants to forgive us, but also to cleanse us (1Jn.1:9).
Grace may appear to be free for us, and it is in one sense, but we must not forget that it cost God the death of His Son to be able to offer that to us. It is this balance we need to see which will help us to respond to grace in the right way. We will stand in awe of God remembering Him in His holiness as well as His love towards us. What we will want then will be to stop sinning and to be pleasing to Him (Rom.6:15).
We need to ask ourselves these questions to ensure that we know God in the right way. When we came to Jesus at first, did we recognise how undeserving we were to stand before Him? Did we see ourselves as sinners who deserved eternal death in hell to whom this undeserved favour is being offered? Did we make a determination to try not to sin any more?
Unfortunately, many people are being invited to Jesus, not for salvation from sin, but so that they can receive many blessings. When they come to Jesus they are expecting to receive many things from Him. Whenever they don't get what they want, they get upset with God! They don't understand that whatever God gives them is by His grace, and that it is a privilege that He grants to them and not any right they become 'entitled' to. So they begin to 'claim' things from God as something they deserve! Some people even think that it is God's duty to take care of them even while they live as they like!
So, many gather all the promises of God in the Bible and think that they can claim all of them. They don't realise that many of those promises were given only to certain people for certain occasions and were not meant for everyone. When the people of Israel were caught between the Red Sea and the Egyptian army, God told them to stand still and watch what He was going to do for them. Can we take this as a promise for us and think that we don't have to do anything from our side and God will do everything for us?
Many also don't realise that many promises are conditional on what we do. If we are not showing any mercy to the others, can we expect God to show mercy to us (Matt.5:7)? Jesus said that if we abided in Him and His words abided in us, we could ask for anything (Jn.15:7). What kind of things will we be asking for if met those conditions? Won't our prayers be then according to His will?
Peter mentions that God has given us 'precious and magnificent' promises by which we can partake of the divine nature (2Pet.1:2-4). Can we sit back and expect this to happen automatically just because God has promised? The next verse makes it clear that because we have received such promises from God, we ought to do our part in changing our thinking and behaviour (v.5).
Since God knows that we might go astray because of our sinful nature that is still present with us, He has also provided us a lot of warnings in the Bible. One warning that is clearly addressed to those who have become children of God says that we should take care lest we should become unbelieving (Heb.3:12). If, once we have become children of God, there was no possibility of falling away because God would do all that He has promised, then such warnings become unnecessary. We only have to look at the example of Israel who had experienced all the miracles from God in Egypt and during their journey to the Promised Land, who drew back once they saw giants in the land. Jesus gave us a warning through the parable of a king with his two servants. The king forgave a servant freely from the huge debt he had. But when this servant refused to forgive another servant who owed a small amount, the king took back that forgiveness and put him in prison. Jesus said that this would be the same way the Father would treat us if we refused to forgive other people (Matt.18:35).
Let us not be those who complain in our heart against God for not giving us what we asked Him, but those who will be diligent to do all that He asks us to do.