Inspire Me!
By Pam Best
He has sent Me to proclaim freedom for the
prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed. Luke 4:18
We must learn to give up every futile attempt to
achieve right relationships by any other means than God's total plan of grace. until we do
this we are doomed to be Christian POWs: Perfomance Oriented Workers or worse yet,
Prisoners of Works. David Seamands
My Interpretation:
Once upon a time, we discussed fixing your relationship in order to fix your behavior.
Well this is the 2nd vs (same as the first! *smile*) . Right relationships can only be
cultivated through a right relationship with Christ and a proper understanding of His
abundant grace. Western culture places high value on performance. We are a "pull
yourself up by your own bootstraps" kind of society. There is no room for grace.
Unfortunately, many of us take this same mentality into our relationships with one another
and our relationship with God. We don't expect grace nor do we extend it. We begin to care
for each other base upon what we do rather than who we are. Everything becomes contingent.
Well God didn't design us to be a "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours"
brand of people. Through Jesus the Christ, He declared unto us freedom from our sins and
oppression. We weren't worthy of it, but He gave it to us and so many of us spend our
lives trying to be worthy of this free gift. And we become angry and guilt-ridden when we
cannot achieve this worth. Nothing that we do will make us deserving of what God did and
continues to do for us. He just loves us - without regard to our works. What He asks for
in return is that we learn of Him and by learning of Him, we come to love Him. This right
relationship with God will spawn right works. We should do because we are loved and love
Him, not because we are trying to win His love. We already have that. By the same token,
this is how we are to be with one another. We will make mistakes in our dealings with
others. We will hurt without intention; betray without purposely meaning to do so. But
when our relationships are built on love and not works, forgiveness and grace step in and
bridge the gap, allowing right relationship to repair itself and again produce good works.
Ask God to develop and define your relationships and it will show in your performance.
Opionions are those of the author
- not necessarily those of TopBlacks
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