Friends,

I hope this finds you well.  Each of us, all day long make choices based upon expected results.  We go to work, expecting a paycheck.  We work hard, maybe putting in a lot of overtime, expecting to be promoted.  We buy tickets to a movie, expecting to be entertained.  We write emails/messages expecting that someone will read them (hopefully, ha ha).  But what do we do with God?  How do we engage a God, who has given us everything even life itself?  What do we have to exchange with Him to earn His favor?  What can we do for Him that He will be merciful to us?

We all tip our hair stylists, right?  Nobody wants a lightning bolt to “accidentally” be shaved into their head!  How much more do I desire that the One responsible for the air in my lungs be pleased w/ me?  I mean, did you see what He did to Sodom and Gomorrah?  We’re talking massive flaming sulfur just wiped 2 cities straight off the map… Not someone you want to have upset with you…

Obviously we’re left with the fact that we don’t have anything to offer God – everything comes from Him.

Acts 17:24-27a – “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God,”

We try to do this though right?!  Here God, I went to church this week – so we’re cool, right?!  I really wanted to talk about how funny that person looked at the party last week, but I didn’t, so I stored up 2 pts w/ God… can’t wait to cash’em in!  Everything else in life seems to work that way, shouldn’t God work in the same way?

Psalm 50:10-15 – “For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine.  “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?  Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”

Let’s say Bill Gates is walking down the street, and you stop him and say “Bill, Bill!  Wait up.  I just want you to have this, I think you’re gonna really be happy” – and you hand him some of your pocket change.  That’d be kinda funny, right?  If you ever do see Bill Gates, please do that, and get it on video, I want to see that on You Tube, ha ha.

That money you earn, came from God.  The air you breathe, that gives you life to work, and serve others, He gives you.  All things are His, we are only stewards of His gifts.  So, knowing that we have offended God as sinners, each of us going our own way, how do we gain the favor of God when we have nothing to offer?  We turn to God, Himself, in His Son, who reconciled us to God, making full payment where we could not.  God desires not to be served, but to be loved – for each of us to look to Jesus, see God’s beauty, and pursue joy in Him vs. his gifts to us.  God desires that we know Him, and recognizing our helplessness and dependence upon Him for… EVERYTHING, we respond not trying to earn His favor with money or works, but with thanksgiving for His doing what we could not.

For our good and God’s glory,
Adam