Favour isn’t Fair

“When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you” Luke 15:17-18.

Jesus was walking down the road, a whole lot of people were following Him and He got to a place looked up and said, “Zaccheus, today I’m going to eat lunch in your house”. Excuse me! What about those of us who have been following you for ten hours? Is that fair? Zaccheus, a sinner – it is not fair. A young rich man came to Jesus; He was not only wealthy, he got his wealth legitimately. And he asked Jesus, “what do I do to get eternal life”? Jesus says, “Sell everything you have, then follow me”. In summary, sacrifice everything and follow me; and the man was sad and left. Fast forward a few months later, Jesus was hanging on the cross, to a convicted thief beside Him Jesus says, “Today, you will be with me in paradise”. Is that fair? Somebody had to sacrifice everything then another person who was most unworthy I might add, just got eternal life on a platter. That is not fair. You must be comfortable with the grace of God upon your life that is not fair. Why am I anointed? I don’t know but I’m anointed by the grace of God and it is sweet. You can go to God and say, “I pray more than him, I can pray twenty hours straight; this man cannot even pray. I fast more than him, I’m even more handsome than he is”. But God has chosen to favor me and I’m comfortable in my skin with that. You have to be comfortable in your skin. Think about it- you know I was thinking, I was meditating and I was like out of all the men in this world, why did my wife choose to marry me? Why? I’m favored. There are other men in this world that have more money… bigger houses but she chose me. Grace is my reliance. If you don’t realize that God has been gracious to you and you don’t recognize the grace, you will abuse it. You are discontent when you should be grateful.

Please read Luke 15:11-32. This is a classic story of grace and truth. The Bible says about the younger son that “when he came to his senses…”. The truth is that grace is not accessible to you until you finally come to your senses. Grace is available to you but not accessible to you, until you come to your senses. For many of us, it is like we are out of our senses. We are just living a riotous life, doing things that we should not be doing. Until you come to your senses grace will remain inaccessible. The way to describe what is going on in a lot of lives is a tug of war, a wrestling match between you and God. But I want to give a solution to winning every battle with God. If you do it, you will always win with God. The only way you can always win with God is to surrender.

Prayer [hymn]: All to Jesus I surrender; all to him I give; I will ever love and trust Him, in his presence daily live. I surrender all (2x), all thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all. Amen!