Having nothing to offer God is only a bad thing if the
covenant between God and man requires something from me. There was a covenant
like that; a covenant aimed to show that we could never be right with God if
God related to us on the basis of us having to contribute something to the relationship.
On the other hand, if there is a covenant between God and
man that requires God to do everything to satisfy every nuance of relationship
between Creator and creature, and we stand before him with nothing in our
hands, the only issue is whether our pride can both admit to our utter and
complete failure to bring anything to the table, and can accept the glorious
and gracious gift that God has provided.
Because I grew up trying to be the good boy who never got
into trouble (outbursts of anger traumatized me), it has been an exceptionally
difficult journey for me to admit to my absolute and complete inability to do
anything good enough to earn right relationship with God through my own good
works.
I don’t mean that I didn’t understand the gospel from a
young age, and that we are all sinners, and that the wages of sin is death, and
only Jesus dying for our sins gives us life with God. Rather, it has been a
long and gracious work of God to bring me to feel the love God has for sinners,
for people who have utterly failed to bring any good thing to the table.
What happens when God seems to drive the glory of his grace
deeper into my heart than I have ever felt it before, and it makes me so
conscious of how sinful I am in myself, without any thought that I can blame
anyone at all for the sins and failures of my soul?
It makes me feel more love and accepted in Jesus Christ than
I ever felt when trying to hide my badness under a mirage of good works.
It is not that God loves me more when I admit to being a
sinner than when I am trying to show him how good I am (this has come to appear
very familiar as I consider the toddler stage of maturity with the many children
who have gone through our daycare).
Rather, it is simply that there is a dimension of God so
loving the world that we can only appreciate when we know how sinful we were
when he loved us and gave his Son for us. There is something of knowing the
love of God that becomes experientially real only when we are in the very midst
of an undeniable moment of guilt, and shame, and fear, and we suddenly get it
that God demonstrated his love to us through the cross while we were still
sinners.
Which then brings us to enjoy the childlike wonder of this
new covenant in Jesus Christ in which all the requirements of relationship with
God are fulfilled on God’s side of the table, and our side of the table only requires
us to respond with the faith that receives the gift.
As God’s Book says, “For
the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ
Jesus our Lord.” And, “For by grace
you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the
gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
What God has done by grace, we can receive by faith. And,
while this removes any right to boast, it liberates us into the childlike
delight of expressing our wonder at having such a great and glorious Father who
has loved us before he even began creating the world, and did everything
required to have us as his own. Forever.
© 2017 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
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