LIFE UNDESERVED

 
“After all that has happened to us because of our evil deeds and terrible guilt—though You, our God, have punished us less than our sins deserve and have allowed us to survive...” Ezra 9:13 HCSB

As part of my reading, in what I write down on my “to do” list as “twiG” (time with God-twiG to remind me that I AM is the vine and little I is just a branch. I've got to be attached to Him to survive.) I read Ezra 9 and verse 13 stuck out. I was amazed and convicted. Amazed that someone had this attitude and convicted that I rarely do.

We had community group last night and were discussing how we struggle with believing that God loves us and I realized in thinking of this verse that true to myself I go from one extreme to the other so many times. Either I struggle with truly believing that God loves me. O, I know it in my head but how different my life would be if I really grasped how great His love is for me and for others-to see people as someone Christ gave His life to save. Doesn't that add more value to us all, not of our own merit but because of the price tag God put on us!

Or I act as though I know God is supposed to be loving me and He is not doing a good enough job. All my thoughts, in both extremes are “me” centered and not God centered. If I remain there I will never have an accurate view of Him or His love for me. I should be on my face with Ezra saying: “I deserve Hell and You have given me life!!”

At the end of the chapter Ezra says: “Lord God of Israel, You are righteous, for we survive as a remnant today. Here we are before You with our guilt, though no one can stand in Your presence because of this.”

Thanks be to God, because of the price Christ paid on the cross, if we have trusted in Him for salvation, we don't receive punishment and we can stand in His presence-not because of our own righteousness. We are as Ezra says-deserving more punishment and unable to stand before God in our guilt. But God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that if we believe in Him, we will not perish but have eternal life! We still will suffer consequences of our own sin and the sin of others. We live in a fallen world. But we live! Eternal life has already begun and we can walk day in and day out, moment by moment with our Redeemer, in, by and through this amazing grace!!!


O Father, help me to see how great You are, how great is Your love for me which would also bring me to see how full of sin and selfishness I am and cause me to fall on my knees in worship and thanksgiving saying: O Lord, You are righteous!! I deserve Hell and You have given me life!!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fun with Family

Image
Elmer Fudd has been a part of our family life for quite a while now. I don't really remember how long. I don't even remember for sure how we came to have him, I think possibly a kid's meal toy from somewhere. He actually wasn't even the original figure. I'm not sure who originally started the game. We've had a couple of the vultures that didn't know what to do but were part of a great barbershop  quartet. Also I believe we had a King Kong figurine at one time. But "The Fudd" as we lovingly call him, made the trip 4 years ago from Oklahoma to the Land of Enchantment. He rode in the housing of the speedometer of our black suburban, known as the Subbubble, but mostly just as the sub. He has been kept around because of a game that my husband started with the family so many years ago, when the KRHs were children.  We now would call it Find the Fudd. Anyway, Cary, started hiding these kid's meal figurines around the house, sometimes in such obvi
Read more

Real Life Picture Lessons

My mother in law died the day before Easter. She literally fought to the death (not in a good way).  It was heart wrenching to watch and still  hurts to think about it but God taught me some really good things as we walked this path with her and her husband. The following is one of the lessons that I learned and wrote during some of the early stages of us really being involved in their care. I have been learning from the real life pictures that God is giving me in dealing with my mother-in-law and her husband. She has a metastatic malignant melanoma that is at least at a stage 3 of 4, it is an avocado sized lump under her left arm. She sometimes acts as if she doesn't even remember that it is there. We have all agreed that she could not handle any kind of treatment and we don't really know how long God will give her. She probably weighs under 100 by now but insists that she eats when she is hungry. She has Alzheimers at least stage 5 of 7 and she has high blood pressure an
Read more

Abounding in Thanksgiving

     " Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving."   Colossians 2:6-7 ESV How often do we "abound in thanksgiving"?  It actually means: to overflow, to excel still more, to increase in excellence. I don't think that I can claim to excel in thanksgiving much less excel still more or increase in excellence. I am way behind when it comes to thanksgiving. It should be my daily attitude and practice but to often it is not. This is telling of a couple of major things: that I don't really know God, who He is and what He has done and I don't know myself, how sinful I am and what great need I have. Or I have lost focus, forgotten these most important things, it is the Gospel, after all. Throughout the Old Testament this phrase is repeated in some form over and over again: “Oh give thanks to the LORD for He is good, H
Read more