God does not have to do anything for us - Everything He does is by grace

The Lord speaks of a servant who has spent the whole day working, he arrives at his master's house in the afternoon or at night, and this Lord instead of saying to him: hey come in, rest, make yourself comfortable, he orders him Let him continue working, and the Lord Jesus Christ says: This is the way men normally deal with their servants. And He says: You are also servants, and when you have done all that God hope you have done, you must say to yourselves: we are useless servants because we did everything we were asked to do.

And in our last meditation I said that the Lord is using this parable of a servant mistreated by his master as a hyperbolic, exaggerated illustration of a very important truth that we always have to take into account in our relationship with God and that is the The basis of any proper relationship of a child of God with the Creator God, the most high, almighty God, and that attitude of recognition of our smallness before the greatness of God must be the foundation of all the things that we do here on Earth.

This parable therefore has two dimensions, right? one dimension describes to us how things really are, how we truly are in the presence of God. We must say that before divine greatness we are nothing, before everything that God has done for us we owe everything to him, before the fact that God has already given us more than we deserve, we have no right to ask for anything. The fact that God is so self-sufficient that no matter how much we want to do, we will never do enough and everything we do will be merely symbolic of God's sufficiency. That is a part, the insufficiency of man, the insufficiency of the servants of God.

Now, on the other hand, this parable as a contrast, invites us to remember that the way in which God treats us is very different from that reality of insignificance before the greatness of God. Rather the Lord is like drawing an illustration to invite us to think the opposite of what that illustration suggests, and it is the fact that in reality we have a God full of grace and mercy who instead of treating us in a derogatory way , disrespectful, demanding, inconsiderate that we see here portrayed in this parable of the lord who treats his servant like this in an unfair way, God treats us in the totally opposite way; He treats us with love, He treats us with kindness, although He has every right to do otherwise.

And for me that first interpretive level of our insignificance and powerlessness before the greatness of God is very instructive and we must not lose sight of it, and it is something on which I want to insist a little more, right?

The Lord uses the image of a servant, he is actually a slave. The word used in the original Greek is: dulos, right? a slave, a person who did not belong to himself, who belonged to his master, a man who has no will of his own ultimately has no rights; it has to do everything that is commanded, it cannot command itself, it cannot make decisions regardless of what its owner determines.

Now, it is important to clarify something and it is that, Jesus was not through this parable excusing or promoting slavery or mistreatment of people, He was rather describing an event of His time. Parables can only teach us up to a certain point and then we have to make adjustments, right?

What the Lord wanted to say was that this man looks a lot like us, doesn't he? It's like when in our time a person works for a corporation or a hospital, or a law firm and is an employee for that firm, right? That person is supposed to work until the job is done. Taking sixty hours a week is fine, that's why the corporation pays him a large amount of money and this person is supposed to work until he has done everything even if it is sometimes excessive work. Here in the United States where we live it is like that.

If you are paid not by the hour but for a position that you occupy as a manager or administrator, you have to work all that is necessary to carry out the task of the corporation and if you work excessively, they do not thank you, Nor do they tell you how you have done the great thing but rather that it is expected that this is what you have to do.

Paul was called: slave of Jesus Christ. Philippians 2: 7 says that Jesus Christ took the form of a servant, a slave. Both Paul and Jesus Christ are described as slaves of God who ultimately did not expect special treatment for their condition but quite the opposite, and that should be that of every believer. That attitude of not deserving anything from God, of knowing that we owe everything to the Lord, that God does not have to be thanking us for anything or doing special things for us.

That must be the fundamental attitude of our actions. It should like frame the understanding of what we are fundamentally in relation to God and His Kingdom, we are servants of God, we are slaves in a sense of God. He has every right and we ultimately have none. God owes us nothing, we owe everything to Him. He gave His only begotten Son to save us on the cross of Calvary, He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing, He has delivered us from hell, He has not given us what we we deserved that is punishment and eternal death. So God has already done everything He has to do and we are perpetual debtors before Him.

You know, sometimes we think that because we serve the Lord and because we tithe or give a small offering there that God is then obligated to do things for us. We believe that God has to bless us and sometimes we don't say it like that, but behind our mind that's what we understand. God: if I am doing this for You, if I am going to Church, if I am giving money, I am serving You well then You have to give me special treatment and you have to free me from problems and trials, and take care of my family, and answer everything I ask of you, you have to heal me, you have to provide for me.

What the Bible clearly teaches is that God does not have to do anything for us. Everything He does is by grace, by mercy and we have to have that attitude of total openness to the Will of God, of total surrender to the Will of the Lord, and when we have done everything we have to know that, ultimately Given all that God has done for us and the many times that we offend him, we have not really done anything and we have to have that attitude of servants, of slaves.

Always say in our hearts: Lord, whatever You want from me, that is what I am going to do, I do not command myself, I have no right to aspire or ask for anything, and what I ask of You is knowing that it will be by grace that You have to answer me. We will continue our meditation later, may the Lord bless you.