How much grace do you want God to have on you?
How much grace do you hope for when you will stand before your Maker?
If you have any ideas that you can help your own self before the Lord,
you are sorely mistaken.
At that point, you could gather all your good works,
and all of them combined could not make enough difference
to get you through those pearly gates.
It will be God’s mercy and grace.
How do you get that?
One way.
Jesus saith unto Him, I am the way, the truth, and the life:
no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me. John 14:6
Jesus is the door. The only door.
I am the door: by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved,
and shall go in and out, and find pasture. John 10:9
We will not be able to demand our way in.
We are certainly not entitled to enter.
We will not be able to hand God lists of all of our good works.
He already knows it all.
God offered His Son as a sacrifice for all of us.
But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light,
we have fellowship one with another,
and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. 1 John 1:7
He has also given us commands to follow.
The whole bible is like a puzzle.
It is Jesus written down in word form.
Some want to just take from God and give nothing in return.
They say they can’t buy their way in, that salvation is a free gift.
While that is true, our gifts and sacrifices to God are important.
He notices how we treat others, for example,
how we treat the widows and the orphans,
how we treat Jesus or others who He teaches us to love, like our neighbors,
and even our enemies.
If we share the love and forgiveness
and grace and mercy that Jesus gives us, that is pleasing to God.
Being the Good Samaritan,
being the one who binds up the wounds of those who are suffering.
Those things please God.
Not always being takers, offering our prayers for others,
offering sacrifices of time and attention toward others who need the gospel.
Keeping Jesus’ commands at the forefront of our minds,
renewing our minds with His word,
keeping our sin at the foot of His cross and denying our flesh.
All those are ways we can let Jesus know we value what He has done.
Listening for His direction, listening for His mercy we can extend to others.
Don’t give up. We can never pay Him back,
but we can let Him know how much we appreciate Him
and His awesomeness.
Grace upon grace.
From his fullness we all received grace upon grace. John 1:16
An extra portion of grace? Sounds great!
Grace and mercy cannot be demanded.
Cain and Abel both gave God sacrifices. One pleased God, the other did not.
Cain did not care what God wanted. He gave God what he wanted to.
Abel respected and revered God and was careful to learn what God required.
There is a strong lesson in this passage:
And in process of time it came to pass
that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.
And Abel also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof.
And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering;
but unto Cain and to his offering He had not respect.
And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.
And the Lord said unto Cain, “Why art thou wroth?
And why is thy countenance fallen?
If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?
And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.
And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.”
And Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass,
when they were in the field,
that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him. Genesis 4:3-8
We would do best to follow Abel’s example and do what pleases God.
It might be best to be humble and let our choice be to choose His way.