Preservation
Are you ever in awe of God’s favor and grace on your life? Do you ever look back and think, “Wow, I only survived that by the grace of God.” Quite often I have conversations with my mom and others about the beauty of God’s intention of grace in our lives. He strategically pours His grace unto us in different moments as part of our personalized story. Though His grace is unchanging, He does choose to display to us differently. Whether we survived a dangerous situation, was inches away from death and true harm and was spared, or we didn’t say “yes” to the date sparing us heartache, and even after we have made a misstep, disobeyed God, was shown mercy and did not experience condemnation, these are al forms of His grace.
During my quiet time with God recently, He whispered to me this nugget: “My favor preserves you so that you may experience the fullness of my promises, your obedience preserves you for the full preparation of those promises fulfilled.”
This was brought to me as I was reading 2 Samuel. King David and his people were on the run, into the wilderness away from David’s son, Absalom, who had exalted himself as king and raised an army against his father, David. Absalom had two advisors, Ahithopel and Hushai (who was acting undercover for David). Both provided insight to Absalom regarding how to overcome David and although Ahithopel’s advice was better, scripture says
“Since the Lord had decreed that Ahithopel’s good advice be undermined in order to bring about Absalom’s ruin, Absalom and all the men of Israel said, “The advice of Hushai the Archite is better than Ahithopel’s advice.”
David’s favor from The Lord and their covenant, moved God to change Absalom’s heart and go with the lessor advice. God preserved David in this manner resulting in Absalom’s demise and the restoration of Israel back to David. (2 Samuel 17- 2 Samuel 19)
Although His grace is not contingent on our obedience, our obedience grants us the chance to experience the fullness of it. Therefore, in times of our weakness, we are to remain obedient in what God has called us to do, and remain steadfast in what honors Him, because then are we releasing ourselves to His will and the fullness of His strength and grace. We cannot earn His grace, it is unmerited. We cannot work hard for His favor, it is granted to us through His covering as His sons and daughters. All of this point back to the significance of Jesus dying on the cross.
Through His death are we able to be reconciled back to God because as He looks at us, He sees His Son, whom is holy, perfect and sinless. For us to be with God, we have to be blameless, this is unattainable as humans working through our own strength, merit and will. We must have a covering so that when God looks at us, He does not see our sin, but His Son; He does not see our guilt, but His Grace; He does not see our mistakes, but His Love. When He looks at us, He has to see Himself looking back at Him, which is why we are called to become more Christ-like. The Holy Spirit makes intercession for us not just in prayer but in our day to day life, sanctifying us to be more like Jesus. Jesus saves us daily and Advocates for us to the Father. God denying His Son, will be like God denying Himself which He cannot do (2 Timothy 2:13), so through Jesus’s advocacy and our obedience in striving to become Christ-like, we are gifted grace, forgiveness, mercy, and favor.
Such a beautiful love story of a Creator who uses His thoughts that are higher than ours, whose ways are greater than ours and stop at nothing to find a way for us to be reconciled back to Him without ever changing who He is! Even in our mess and reconciliation to Him, He is still Holy. Jesus serves as the mediator to bridge that gap from an unholy people to a Holy God. He chose to not preserve himself but taking up the cross and being killed, so that you will be spared. I want to encourage you this week to seek Jesus and thank him for preserving you, saving you day after day but more importantly, eternal salvation.
