Written by Pastor Jack Wellman– Woodrow Kroll
Undeserved
Do any of us deserve any blessings at all? Of course not. It’s only because of God’s goodness that he blesses us, even those who don’t know Him as Jesus said that God “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt 5:45), so the Apostle Paul would remind us, “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it” (1st Cor 4:7)?
Unearned
We can overlook our difficulties if only we would count our blessings. Why not write out a list of the things that God has blessed you with, and by the way, all good things come from God, and even the evil in our life is something that God can use for good (Gen 50:20), so look at your own salvation and understand that you did nothing to deserve it and neither did you do anything to earn it (Eph 2:8-9), otherwise it would no longer be the free gift of eternal life (Rom 6:23b).
Unbelievable
The author of Hebrews tells us that we can neglect our salvation, even though it is great, so he writes, “how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard” (Heb 2:3), but some still reject it because they want to earn it or do something to save themselves. It is our human nature to not accept something as great as salvation is as being free. We are suspicious of “free” because we always think there’s a catch, but this is why grace is so amazing. It is undeserved, unearned, and unbelievable.
Conclusion
Woodrow Kroll has a great idea in saying, “Concentrate on counting your blessings and you’ll have little time to count anything else.” If we can fathom that our salvation is not deserved, that our salvation is not earned, and that our salvation is so unbelievable, we’ll be too busy giving God thanks than to be distracted by anything else in this world.
