People don't know what to do with free things.
Minus me, free shirts? yes. Free food? yep. Free manicure? thank you.
But seriously though, people have a really hard time accepting things they did not earn.
We passed out free lunches the other day.
These lunches were legit, for real, I wanted one.
As I approached people and asked them if they wanted to a free lunch they would scrunch up their face, and ask me one of two questions;
"What is this for?"
or
"What's the catch?"
I would smile and say, no reason, no catch, we just want to give you a free lunch today.
Some people would take it, and some people would refuse, their brains not allowing them to grasp the simplicity of someone giving them a gift for free.
But the gift is not like the trespass.
For if the many died by the trespass of the one man,
how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by
the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!
Romans 5:15
I started getting frustrated.
"Why the heck don't people want these? I WANT THESE, it's not like its hard."
But I realized in that moment that these free lunches are a lot like God's grace.
I treat God's grace with stubbornness and a skeptical outlook.
"Would you like some grace today?
"Uh, what's the catch, what do I have to do?" I say my face scrunched up in an ugly looking face.
"Nothing, I just know you, and I love you, I want you to have this, its a gift." His hands outstretched towards me.
"You know what, actually, I'm okay, you know, I'm pretty busy today, maybe tomorrow, or next week."
We don't like things we don't earn, we don't like people being nice to us because we don't see why they would do that.
God offers grace like a dog offers slobbery kisses.
Every single moment we have the choice to take the gift, or refuse it.
It's ridiculous how many times I've refused it, wanting to rather sit in my guilt and shame because I feel like that's what I deserve.
You don't want to play the deserve or earn game, you don't want to go down that road because what we deserve is Hell.
That's not a fun place to be in.
God saved you by his grace when you believed.
And you can't take credit for this; it is a gift from God.
Ephesians 2:8
We are saved and called righteous because of the free gift of Grace, because Jesus is offering us something we don't deserve, that we did nothing to get, are we going to take it?
