A while back We were driving down a lonely road. Just our little family. Just having a conversation and minding our own business. When the dreaded lights shone in our rear view mirror. What had we done wrong? I didn’t think we were speeding. Our tags weren’t out. Our lights worked. We had no clue. We pull over and wait. We said a prayer asking God to help the officer be nice and to not give us a ticket. Come to find out, we were stopped for going a mile or two over the speed limit. And hen he said the words every driver wants to hear. I’ll give you a warning today. We then praised God for His mercy and for the grace the officer showed us. So you know what we did? We sped off going 10 miles over the speed limit to make up for time lost. I mean. The officer did show us grace.
No. That’s not what we did at all. We drove off carefully and watched our speedometer. We made sure we stayed under the speed limit for a while. Why? Because he showed us grace. If we really had sped off, it would be like a slap in the face to the officer.
There is a story in the Bible in Matthew chapter 18. A king was going through his accounts and one servant owed him ten thousand talents. This servant did not have the money to pay the king back so he was to be sold along with his wife, kids, and all that he had so that the payment could be made. Of course the servant didn’t want that. He fell to his knees and begged the king to give him time to come up with the money to pay off his debt. The king had compassion on his servant. He has grace. He forgave the servant. The servant was free from his debt. What a weight was lifted off his shoulders. He wouldn’t have to be sold not would he have to pay back all the money. This servant, after receiving this amazing grace, went and found another servant who owed him a hundred pence. But instead of showing the same grace the king showed him, he laid hands on this man and demanded he pay him what was owed. He fellow servant fell to his knees and asked for patience. He agreed to pay it all back, he just needed time. The servant was just shown grace. Do you think he would return that grace to his fellow servant? No, he didn’t. He cast his fellow servant into prison sentencing him until he could pay all that he owed. People were watching. They saw what just happened. They went straight away to the king. The servant was called back in before the king oh thou wicked servant, I forgave you all you debt, because you asked me. Shouldn’t you also have compassion on your fellow servant even as I has compassion on you? Of course the king was mad. He showed mercy and grace to his servant only for him to turn around and punish his fellow servant for something less than what he was forgiven for.
God gives us grace. He forgives us of our sins. But that doesn’t mean we need to keep sinning. Jesus died for each one of us. He said us from our sins, not in our sins. There are Ten Commandments that we should follow. Jesus said, If you love me, keep my commandments. We obey because we love Him. We are not saved because we obey. We obey because we are saved.
Paul said in Romans 6 verses 1 and 2, “what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?”
We are saved by grace. But why would we knowingly continue to sin? We could have sped off after receiving a warning, grace. But we did not. We accepted the free gift and sped no more. God has forgiven us our sins. Do we continue to knowingly sin? No. We should go and sin no more.
Accept His free gift. This is possible only By God’s Amazing Grace.
No comments:
Post a Comment