Responsibility Of Favour I

“But someone who does not know, and then does something wrong, will be punished only lightly. When someone has been given much, much ill be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required” Luke 12:48

Many times we attribute a lot to ourselves that we have no business attributing. You are the apple of God’s eye, how He regards and responds to the apple of His eye has nothing to do with whether you prayed for two hours or didn’t do your quiet time. Again, do not get me wrong, we should pray and pray we must. Devout yourself to praying and developing yourself in the place of prayer, it will change and save your life. But that is not what determines how God will respond when someone tries to harm you. Before God remembers that you didn’t pray, He would have given the person a black eye because that is His reflex action. Think about it, you don’t worry about whether your eye itches or whether you need to put on glasses to see, you defend your eyes instinctively if someone tries to harm it. That is what God does for us and we are grateful to Him for such favour. However, favour comes with responsibility. Sometimes, we feel favour means having a blank cheque to live like rascals with no consequences. Not at all! Favour comes with responsibility. And we will be looking at two responsibilities of favour.

1#: The moral responsibility of favour. Jesus puts it this way, “To whom much is given, much is required”. If God has given you so much grace and favour God is expecting so much fruit from you. If someone was graced it was David. If you read his story, you would realize that what really hurt God in that whole Bathsheba episode was this. “Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord and given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child that is born to you shall surely die” 2 Sam.12:14. It was that same Name of the Lord that had been working for David. David got to the throne for God’s Name sake. David, a nobody, became great for God’s Name sake. David’s family was nothing in Israel but God singled him out and made him a force to be reckoned with for His Name sake. And David threw that same Name to the pigs and God held him responsible for it. It is amazing how God does stuff. Even the New Testament believer, before we were saved Jesus had already died for us while we were yet sinners but we need to ask for forgiveness to be forgiven. But in David’s case, if you read that story well, David was forgiven even before he asked for forgiveness. Nathan said the Lord has forgiven you but you will be chastised. I thought, what kind of forgiveness is that Lord? If you forgive, then please forget. But the truth remains; to whom much is given much is expected.

Prayer: Father, I ask for the grace never to bring Your Name to disrepute, in Jesus Name.