Have you ever heard of digging yourself into a hole. I'm sure we all have. Like spending more than you earn. You get credit cards, max them out and then you have this massive dept that you can't possibly pay off, hence bankruptcies. However, the job or your pay isn't the problem, it's your spending habits.
With God, we also pile up spiritual dept (sin) and have no way of getting out. No matter how we try, our dept to income ratio is way too high and can never be overcome by our attempts, hence Jesus. Jesus is like filing chapter 11 bankruptcy. Our dept is wiped clean and we have a whole new lean on life. Now if I was hundreds or even millions of dollars in dept, my house was being foreclosed on, my cars taken away and I was actually going to go to jail over my dept, wouldn't I be forever grateful if someone wiped away my dept with no strings attached. Wouldn't I want to be close to them, learn from them, help them and love them forever. Yes I would but in God's case, why do we not see the value of our salvation. Do we even want to live for Him.
We continually place value on all things. It's in our nature. We see the value of something, as again, a return on investment (ROI). If you put into something, what do you get out of it. Simple. However, with God, our ROI isn't seen, it hasn't been revealed. It's like a savings account you have no access to. At your acceptance of Jesus as your savior, an account opened up. We will be judged at the end on how much our account has in it but we have no access to it to see how well we are doing.
Confusing, I know. Faith clears your dept and opens a new account. I used to think I had to keep a list of my good works, kind of like a spreadsheet. I'd do something good, one point for me. I'd do something I knew God didn't like, a ton of points deducted. I kept a tally in my mind of how I was doing and usually I would do poorly and was in dept up to my eyeballs again. I have come to the conclusion that God doesn't work on a merit system.
God works on Love. That's because He is love. Not the lustful love, but the genuine selfless love we all need to come to understand. God didn't send His Son out of pity, remorse, anger or frustration. Instead, He sent Him because He loves. If we had the ability to swoop in and erase all our children's dept and build them a huge house to live in and give them all they needed, would we. Of course, because we love them. Would we let them suffer first though. Yes. Why? Because suffering brings about humility and appreciation when the suffering is removed.
All of humanity could have been saved right after the fall of man. Would we be a people of arrogance or a people of humility if that happened though. Arrogance. To have someone's dept erased and for them to be eternally grateful for it, they must experience the dept. We must experience and truly grasp our desperation, our inability to make things right, our destitution, our complete and utter need for someone to pull us out of the darkness and into the light.
In order to appreciate good we must know evil. In order to appreciate light we must live in darkness first. I have fasted for seven days before, and believe me, you appreciate food and it's abundance more after that. We must see our situation. We must grasp where we were and where we are going in order to love the one who has changed our situation.
He loves and therefore we should love because of that. If we relegate God's gift to us, as a transaction of sorts, and we dumb it down to a simple handshake type of transaction, we never realize the tremendous gift of love. We must see the value of His gift. If we don't, our hearts never change. If we do see His gift for its value, that's where change comes in and it isn't change at a transactional level, it's love.
The whole situation between us and God is this. He loves us, nothing else but that love must let us also see the value of love, hence suffering. If we don't suffer, we cannot appreciate the value of His gift through Jesus. Eyes that suffer see the value of love more than eyes that don't. It's as simple as that. Why is their suffering in the world people ask, to show us the value of love. Without it, love is devalued and it shouldn't be. Love should be exalted above all else, including self.
If we ask ourselves one thing, it is this, where am I? Perspective of your situation is paramount in appreciating your current situation. If we have faith in Christ Jesus then we must reflect on that humbly. If we take it for granted, we have missed the entire point. Every day we breath and we have faith, that day should be filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude and happiness. We cannot let the issues of this physical world overwhelm what we have in the spiritual world. We cannot! We see our terrible situation with friends or family or money or jobs and we compare our current troubles and devalue the gift given to us. We cannot do that.
If our dept is forgiven, should we be set up in a mansion too or should we be given a tent to live in until we appreciate the immensity of our forgiveness. The tent of course. We are being judged on the amount of appreciation we have which equals out to love towards He that forgave us. God is love and He wants love in return. In fact, He wants to live in us through the type of love He has. We say, your kid is a chip off the old block, because they act just like you. However, do we act just like God after we come to Faith in Jesus. Hardly. We stay in a self absorbed mentality, bickering about anything not going our way. That isn't love for our Savior or our Father.
Seek first the Kingdom, which is God's love, and all will be given to us. If we could just remove ourselves from our physical, Earthly situations and meditate on our spiritual selves, we'll find we are rich and blessed and so loved. So, go sit and empty your worries about your job, your money, your health, and focus on who you are as a spiritual being outside of your body and things. See where you were and where you are now. See yourself before Jesus and yourself now. If there's no change between the two, ask God to open your eyes to His love for you. Once you see, you'll appreciate your situation more and you'll start to love like He does.
To God be the Glory!
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