March 15: Acts 27–Romans 4

By David Cooke

In Romans 4:7-8, Paul quotes David saying:

"God blesses people
whose sins are forgiven
and whose evil deeds
are forgotten.

The Lord blesses people
whose sins are erased
from his book."

Notice that the passage does not say "God blesses people who are blameless" or "The Lord blesses people who don't sin." Or the modern equivalent "God blesses those who are successful."

God's favor falls on those of us whose souls he has healed, not on those non-existent folks who have never been ill. The fact of the matter is, we will all fail and we will all need help. And the irony is, our failures lead to blessings. It's right there in the book. Our failures will eventually lead to blessings through God's forgiveness.

Many of us are control freaks. We think that so much of what we do determines our destiny. The "self-made man" concept is a large part of our North American cultural thought. The Word, however, doesn't always agree with the view of our culture. Our perceived failures are often what leads us to our blessings through God. Can we really expect to make ourselves better than God, who makes (and recreates) us in his own divine image? Can we really expect that we will do better than God at blessing ourselves? The fact is, we fare better when let God do his thing, when we accept what he has to offer, than when we try to do it all on our own merit. The big lie is that we want what we deserve. The truth is, God wants to give us more than we deserve.

True blessings, then, come not from what earn for ourselves. Those are merely wages. Blessings are given freely. All we have to do is accept them.