29 October 2007 Devotion for Today "The Riches of His Grace" Ephesians 1:7

29 October 2007  Devotion for Today “The Riches of His Grace”  Ephesians 1:7

 

            Last year, a combined, multi-state lottery, commonly called the Powerball Lottery, awarded over $350 million to a family in Iowa.   I can never in my life imagine that kind of money.   There is a part of our attitude that is very happy for this family receiving that amount of money, and yet there is another part feeling the tinges of jealousy that it was them and not us who suddenly received that kind of staggering statistic in their bank account.  Oh, we would never admit this.  I have heard the same people who mutter “Money doesn’t buy happiness,” also say “money doesn’t grow on trees!”  Instead, at the water cooler, we chat with our workmates piously declaring that we would never want that kind of money, or that “the lottery money will curse that family with break up and ruin!”   You have heard this, so have I, and frankly I do not believe it.  Something may be said for the idea of corruption coming into play, but it would not have been because of the money.  It would have happened anyway, whether they had received $350 million, or $350.  In my lifetime I have seen people do some really strange things with money- not because the money has corrupted them, but because people corrupted the money.  There are people who will succeed no matter what category they have been placed in life- the indigent who has nothing who decides to work hard and get an education, and prosper.  But I have seen people who were born wealthy and prosper even more.  I have also seen hard-working people trying desperately to get ahead and lose everything, while undeserving people getting the “breaks” in life.  .It is difficult to admit that there are inequities in life not because God  put them there, but because we put them there.

            However, in Ephesians 1:7, Paul declares to us the great equalizer- the thing that will cause all of us to “get rich quick.”  No, we don’t have to sell vitamins and we don’t have to call up our neighbors and friends to listen to a presentation about how to sell soap.  Instead, Paul declares, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.”

            The riches of His grace. God’s grace, like His love and all His other attributes, is limitless.  It is far beyond our understanding or ability to describe, yet we know it is according to the riches of His infinite grace that God gives us forgiveness.  I realize that many people do not value forgiveness- that is until they realize that they are about to lose everything- not just their money, but their jobs, their spouses, their children, their families.  I have watched so many stand hopelessly by while their incomes go to lawyers who draw up divorce settlements.  When this happens, all the money in the world means nothing to them if they can just keep their family together.  The same is true of those who know they are about to go to jail while all their possessions sit by on the sidelines and rot away.  What people desperately want in situations like these is not more money, but forgiveness.

            It is good to have money.  But all the money in the world never kept one person out of hell.  Instead, we need riches from somewhere else, riches from heaven- drawn on our account that used to come up consistently “insufficient funds!”  But God made a deposit in that account expended by the precious blood of Jesus- an account that each one of us may draw freely and as often as we want.  Do you have this account?  Go to your Father and ask Him to open one for you. 

Have a blessed day.

 

Rev. Jeffery C. Russell
Salem Baptist Church
Elizabeth City, NC
jefferyrussell@embarqmail.com

jcrussell@liberty.edu

 

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