Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Acts 14:15 "We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them."
GRACE COMES WITHOUT A BILL
The grace of Jesus is absolutely foreign to a sinner's thinking. The sinner thinks, "If I've done something wrong, I need to do something right to make up for it."
The boyfriend who upsets his girlfriend buys flowers and chocolate. The employee who messes up a job tries extra hard on the next one to "make up" for his mistake.
When Paul and Barnabas came preaching and healing in the city of Lystra (Acts 14), the people of Lystra mistook them for gods. They thought that Zeus and Hermes were in their city. So, thinking like the sinners they were, they went to get the sacrificial bulls.
The false gods that mankind makes up are all the same. They all ask, "What can you do to appease me?" But the Living God says, "Look what I've got for you."
Paul and Barnabas were messengers of the Living God, not messengers of some lifeless and empty idol. They didn't come to demand sacrifice, but to show the Lystrians that God had already provided the sacrifice on their behalf!
God had already come down in the form of a man. God the Son had humbled himself and become a real flesh and blood baby named Jesus. God had lived for them and with them. God had died for them and in their place. The sinless Son of God had come to be the sacrifice which would please God and atone for all the sins of all the people of all time.
The free gift of sins forgiven comes from the Living God, and because of Jesus, it comes to you without a bill.
