No Negotiations Necessary!

I got to thinking about something a bit extreme this week.  My Life Connection Class (Sunday School) is studying Galatians, and it was kind of easy to want to rush through Galatians 3 and think “Ok, Paul.  We got it in Galatians 2. We know you’re upset. Let’s move on.” But I found it was worthwhile to spend some time meditating on

Suppose you were standing by the Grand Canyon, and the man next to you leaned too far over the rail and fell in.   There he is hanging onto the rail for dear life, and you reach down and offer him a hand up.  You are the only thing standing between him and certain death, and all he has to do is reach up and take your hand. But he won’t do it!  He wants to talk about it first! 

“You know I’m not a really nice person.  Are you sure you want to do this?”  You assure him that it is ok.  “Well, if I take your hand, what do you want from me?”  You try to explain that you don’t want him to do anything except take your hand.  Finally, he believes you, takes your hand, and soon he is standing on safe ground beside you again.  He asks what he owes you, and you explain he doesn’t owe you anything.  You just want him to go and tell everybody he meets what you did for him .  But instead of going out and sharing this amazing story, he follows you around, trying everything he can think of to somehow DO something that will be great enough to make him worthy of your actions.  How frustrated would you be?  How sad would that make you?  How ungrateful does this “friend” appear to be?

Now there is no doubt that Paul is upset in this passage.   I get it, but can you imagine how God feels every time we cheapen – yes, I said cheapen, devalue, malign, soil – the amazing sacrifice His Son made on the cross to pay the price for our sin by trying to be “good enough” to “deserve” something done with so much genuine love?  How do you put a value on something so priceless?  All we’ve got to do is reach out and accept it. There is absolutely nothing that is going to make us puny, little sinners worthy of that sacrifice.  He did it because He loves us that much!  The things we do for Him after that should be done to show Him how much we love Him – not out of a sense of duty but out of a strong desire to lovingly worship and obey.  They are not items to check off some kind of Master List Guide for the Super Christian.

I recently heard a friend say she had been trying to “be good” but she was just too “bad” to be able to do it.  Well, of course she is!  We all are!  The question we have to ask ourselves is this: are we willing to reach up, take His outstretched hand and accept His salvation or are we going to dangle precariously over eternal “death” and negotiate with God for no reason?  It should be a no brainer!