The Saints’ Inheritance

Every religion spends time teaching its adherents how to manipulate its god to grant them help or favor or security. Islam, Voo-doo, Hinduism, Buddhism, Rasta, Roman mythology, both ancient and currently through the Vatican, Socialism, Mormonism, much of the church. “Here’s how to get your god to do what you want:…”

The opposite is what we should be learning by reading the Book and listening to the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus. We cannot earn blessing. We cannot provoke blessing. We can only receive it or reject it.

If I am told that at 3:00 pm today I can get free fuel at a certain gas station, and I show up and receive it, I did not earn it nor provoke it. I just showed up and received the gift. My obedience to my King is the same as being informed regarding where the free fuel was. I listen, I obey, and I am then in a position and/or a condition in which blessing can be received. The blessings are along the path where obedience carries me. I may not know what will happen when I obey, and I may not even be sure I am obeying. It could be that I simply am doing what seems best at the moment.

For this reason also, since the day we heard this, we haven’t stopped praying for you. We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light.
(Colossians 1:9-12 HCSB ©®)