Psalm 28:1-9
...Praise be to the Lord, for he has heard my cry for mercy. The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him. The Lord is the strength of his people, a fortress of salvation for his anointed one. Save your people and bless your inheritance; be their shepherd and carry them forever.
Brothers and sisters, our God is more than happy to give us grace. All we need to do is to come before Him to receive His grace. Even though we all know that God has all kinds of grace, we still don't receive it. It's like going to a feast but not wanting to enjoy any of the good food. Why is that? First, because we don't feel hungry. If a child had too much junk food, then he won't feel like eating any real food. Second, even though we are hungry, we don't feel like eating from the feast, because we have our own favorite food, so we rather starve ourselves than eating. It's same as having our own opinion and idea in life. Third, even though we are hungry and the food is good, we have other business and plan to take care, so we'll join the feast after we're done with our own things.
Overall, we don't want to accept God's grace because we are too complicated inside; we are good at analyzing things and we want everything to make sense to us. In fact, Gospel and God's grace are very simple. You don't need to totally understand theology or go through purposely mistreat ourselves, because God's grace is completely free to us. Lord Jesus has accomplished all the grace on the cross; when He said "it is finished" on the cross, it meant that God's redemption has been completed. All the abundant grace in Christ has been prepared, and we can receive it as long as we're willing.
Years ago I went to Northern Thailand for a mission trip, and we needed to take a bus to Chiang Mai. A brother and I sat on the last row of the bus, and we saw the bus conductor took out a case of soda from the back of the bus. I told the brother next to me that these guys really know how to do business, and when they want to sell us the soda we definitely won't buy. When the conductor handed the soda to me, we declined to take them. Later on, we found out that the soda is free, so we quickly asked for two bottles! We lived in the US for too long, so we didn't think anyone would give us soda for free on a bus ride, thus we naturally rejected the offer. Surprisingly, all we had to do is simply receive and say thanks, and then we can enjoy the soda. In the same way, we simply need to accept God's grace by faith, and God's grace will come upon us!
Pray with Pastor Tong
Lord, please come and open our hearts; help us to simply receive your grace in our daily life and enjoy your presence with us. I thank you and I pray in the victorious name of Jesus, amen!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.