By Gary D. Robinson
If I read Paul
correctly here, before we came to Christ we weren’t much different. We were
out running little chicken errands, pecking at each other, mindlessly crowing
over our accomplishments. We were afraid and had reason to be. It’s a wonder
God didn’t just sell us to the Devil for his dinner! Lord knows, Satan has
a taste for human flesh!
I think most people
feel like something bad is going to happen to them. If something good happens
to them, they think something bad or worse must happen to even the scales.
Whether they know it or not, they’re thinking about God.
How could anything good or bad just happen to
us, unless God were behind it? And why are we worried about the bad happening?
We must be to some degree aware of our essential guilt, our spiritual deadness.
We might blot the idea of judgment out of our minds. We might get upset if
someone suggests that our loved ones might not make it to Heaven. But, have
you noticed? When it comes to us,
we never say to the Judge “You have no case.”
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We know what to expect, don’t we? We're like Jean
Valjean in Les Miserables, expecting
to be jailed for stealing the bishop's silver — only to be offered his candlesticks
as well! “Surprise!”
Talk about dodging
a bullet! What we were was dead. What we are, thanks to Jesus Christ, is alive.
For His is a gospel of grace.
Good thing too!
Grace is definitely something we don’t see every day, not in this world. “What?
He’s not out of the first grade yet?” “She’s not married yet?” “They haven’t
bought a new car in 10 years? Well, I’m not surprised! After all, he’s so
slow, she’s so plain, they’re so lazy.” They don’t toe the line, they don’t
reach the bar, they don’t make the grade. Yes, grace is downright unnatural
in this world — this Look Good, Feel Good, Make Good world.
But Christ’s
is the gospel of grace. He doesn’t say, "Your children need
a little religion under their belts." "You folks could use a little
churchin’ up!" "Be Nice, Be Good, Turn over a New Leaf." Rather,
He says, “Come up with a new life!” The gospel of grace is not the message this world gives us. It’s as unnatural as the
dead rising from the grave, then taking to the skies!
But that’s just
what happens. The gospel of grace raises the dead. It tells of a God who came
to earth . . . and became a gravedigger! Only He didn’t put ‘em under, He dug ‘em
up! He used the weirdest shovel you ever did see-a cross. Jesus died on that
cross, went down into the grave, and then He came out — pulling the dead out
with Him! For His encore, He set them up high with Himself in the heavenly
places.