Thursday, March 18, 2010

An Undeserved Reward - March 18, 2010

Good Thursday morning! The green holiday is over; you can put that green outfit with the shorts back in the closet for another year... unless you golf of course, goofy clothing is okay on the course from what I hear. When speaking of golf that might be "coarse" of course. We have enjoyed a couple of very nice days here, the first in the 60's since last autumn I do believe. Days like this make your thoughts turn to baseball, golf, garden work, and many other outdoor things that we have missed for a while. I don't see a lot of green in the grass yet, but it's there I'm sure, and a couple of robins were in my backyard yesterday too. Spring, the season of renewal and growth. After a long winter, one can hardly help but write about the spring!

Winter begins with a special season, the celebration of Christ's birth. We then watch as the cold weather and short days make us all a bit out of sorts, a cabin fever kind of thing. However, the next season is spring and that as we know starts with Easter, or as we like to remember, Resurrection Day. We celebrate the Sunday when one person in all of history walked out of the grave on his own. I wonder if Jesus got up and greeted the dawn with a few special words on that most unique of days? A great victory had been won on the cross and now the reward awaited the victor. There is even better news ahead!

The reward Jesus won on the cross he wants to share with everyone who will believe. We did all the sin; he wants to share with all of us the reward. Does that seem fair? No, but in the undeserved kind of way, sort of along the lines of being given the World Series trophy and not playing baseball, or being awarded the keys to that nice car, but not playing in the golf tournament. We get the reward, but our side seemed to have lost the game. Not only lost, but none of us were any good at the sport - we all sinned repeatedly. Hardly the ones that should be left holding the winner's trophy.

That's the way grace works though. Not one of us is capable of winning our way to Heaven on our own. We could not meet God's perfect standard, so Jesus went out and won the championship for us. How does it feel to hold a gold medal that you don't deserve? Imagine arriving in Heaven with the winner's medal around your neck. Each of us has one with our name on it, and yet not one of us deserves it. We might even look down in shame and try to pull it off, but it won't move. Jesus walks up and says, "That is yours forever, your key to enter Heaven. My gift to you for believing in Me!"

We accepted a great gift bought at a great price. Enjoy your gift of life! Trust in Jesus to keep your gift safe and secure until you arrive to claim it.

Bucky

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