Romans 4:4-5 :: Gift v. Wage

Romans 4:4-5 (The Message and TNIV)                               Reading Plan

Have you ever received a gift?  I don't mean a gift at a birthday, or Christmas or a gift thanking you for something you did or even from a parent just grateful for whose you are.  I mean a real gift, one that you never expected and absolutely didn't deserve?  As an adult this sort of gift might be hard to receive.  We live in a society of earning.  There are no "gifts" as an adult, really.  We earn what we get, don't we?  It's built into the DNA of our country: work hard, accomplish great things and get rewarded.  What about giving a gift?  Have you ever given someone a gift for absolutely no reason other than you wanted to do so?  How did that make you feel?

Today's reading just made me smile.  My "getting set right with God" is not a wage.  It's not something I earned.  In fact, if it were up to me earning it, I would have never received it.  Paul likens it to "something only God can do, and you trust Him to do it."  This trusting Him to do it is what we call FAITH.  All of this reminds me of another set of verses in Ephesians, where Paul says that our "saving is all His idea, and all His work.  All we do is trust him enough to let Him do it.  It's God's gift from start to finish!"

I think, for self-sufficient Americans, this message is something we have or will wrestle with.  When you stop and really think about this, no matter what you've been told in the past, our reconnected relationship with God isn't initiated by us, but by Him.  It won't finish with us, but with Him.  This is absolutely GREAT NEWS!  If it's all about Him from start to finish, and I did nothing to earn it, I don't have to live worried that if I mess up enough, I might lose it.  I don't have to live paranoid that "God is not going to love me if He knew that certain something about me", that "He's going to abandon me just like my father did" or that "I'm not as good as her because she does this or that."  Wrestling and embracing our reading today brings with it a freedom that only comes from God through trusting what Christ did to make us right with Him.  That's it!

If we, as a person, a family, a citizen, a church, embrace this truth in our daily lives, how will it change the way we treat others?  The way we do church?  The way we parent?  The way we live?