For Our Benefit - February 23, 2008

Good Saturday morning, and a bright, warm morning it is! The time has moved right on by me this morning; it is almost 1000 already. Wal-Mart has been enriched a bit by my arrival there this morning, perhaps I can give a little back to the Lord as well. The funny thing is that the Lord gives me all I need to produce this devotional or any other good work that I can do; how can I possibly give back what I didn't have on my own to begin with? :-) In many forms of belief or religion, there is a reward for work, behavior, or time spent in that religion. When we are saved, Jesus tells us quite plainly in Matthew that He has gone to prepare a place for us in His Father's mansion. There is no minimum requirement of money given, hours volunteered, time spent in meditation, or any amount of effort. Our reward awaits us without our having lifted a finger in effort. Even in keeping the Law, it seems that no law is given to benefit God at all. Eh? How does that work? When we have no other gods before our Father in Heaven, we benefit. When we avoid debasing ourselves by bowing down to some graven image, we benefit. No murder, theft, or adultery? All of us benefit from that. When we love each other God doesn't become better off, but we surely do. Loving God with all of your heart doesn't make Him bigger, better, faster, or more powerful; it makes us trust in Him more, all to our benefit. More often than not, you will see religious systems set up for the benefit of the older practitioners, some unknowable deity invented by men, or the religion itself. In Christ, everything is for our benefit, not in selfishness, but because of God's grace. All because Jesus loved each of us enough to die in our place. Kind of hard to suffer from pride in light of all that!

Praise God for His love on this fine Saturday morning!

Bucky