3-27-2017

Good Morning All,

             Romans 4:3; “What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

    I read a story on the internet yesterday (so we know it is true!) about a retired lady who had been receiving her monthly retirement check.  She had worked for this company all of her life.  She retired at the age of 62.  She is now almost 90.  She has been receiving these retirement checks for almost 30 years each month depositing the money that she and the company had paid in.  The other day she got a letter from the retirement fund management company.  They had miscalculated her payments and had been overpaying her the whole time.  With interest calculated in, they felt she owed them $620,000.  They were waiting for her prompt payment.

    The fund management credited more money to her account than they should have.  Now they expected it back.  God credits to your account all that Jesus did and counts it as your righteousness.  Just think if you place of employment or your retirement fund was to deposit a large sum of money everyday something like $25 million every morning at 6:00 am; every day of the week, every week of the year, every year of your life.  What would you do with this?  You would never owe anyone anything and you would run out of things to buy and never have to pay it back.

    This is how much God credits to your account through the righteousness of Christ.  It is a sum that you cannot exceed in one day.  Now some of you may think you have.  You may think that you have exceeded your allotted amount but you have not and cannot.  The devil will try to tell you that your “grace account” is overdrawn that you are in debt to a level that you can never repay.  Yet God continues to put into this account every day, grace upon grace; to a level you cannot comprehend.

   God does this out of love for you.  He does this so you can be his redeemed child.  There are so many ways that God shows you his love.  He does this with his creative act as he creates the world; he does it with his redemptive act of his death; he does it with his re-creative act as he restores us to his kingdom and he does it with the regenerative act of his holy meal as he nourishes us.  This he does in order to sustain us through the trials and struggles of this life.  This he does so that we can live confident of our future; confident in the hope that he gives to us.  We are able to face the tasks of today and the challenges of tomorrow because our account is full, never overdrawn.  God, in his mercy, sustains us with his righteousness that he wraps around us with his love.  You can take that to the bank!!

Father in heaven, your mercies are new to us each day.  We give you thanks for the grace that you pour out upon us.  We know no other hope than you.  Be with those who struggle and are in fear.  Be with those who see their struggle as beyond their tolerance.  Give them your comfort and your hope.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret