God treats us in a preferential way

Even though God is total sovereign and could treat us in an enslaving way, God calls us His children and Jesus calls us His friends. I have here written that: "Now in Christ everything is by grace, not because we deserve it."

That dark and oppressive image that Christ paints through the parable reminds us that this is the way things are judicially in the Kingdom of God and that if God wanted to treat us like this, He could very well do so. But then we must thank God that He treats us differently, that through the Grace that we have through Christ Jesus we can aspire to good things from our Heavenly Father, to preferential treatment, to receive information and teaching from part of Him who will share with us everything that has to do with His Kingdom as John chapter 15 verse 15 says.

There are some verses that remind us of this wonderful image, of this idea that in Christ Jesus we are now children, we are friends, we are faithful members of the Kingdom of God. A Word says that: "We are not foreigners or upstarts" upstarts means like: close friends, like people who come from outside and have to look for a little corner there in the peripheral part of the Kingdom of God. God calls us to be an integral part of His Kingdom, to enter as we confidently said to the Throne of Grace.

I remember the words of Jesus Christ when he said: "I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance." The Lord has not come to take advantage of us and squeeze us, but on the contrary, it is to give us life, to instill courage in us, to extract everything beautiful and noble from our existence.

There is a passage in Romans 8 that says that "He who gave up His Son for us will not also give us all other things together with Him?" In other words, that passage from Romans 8 invites us to think that: if God gave the most precious, the most expensive thing that He has, how could He not also give us, after having given us that great thing, the smallest things in our life ? our daily bread, our maintenance, our health, the desires of our heart. Compared to the life of the Lord Jesus Christ that the Father gave all that is absolutely small.

The measure of God's love is the giving of His Son, everything else is included within that. Everything else we ask of the Father is details, tiny things compared to the greatness of His Son's sacrifice.

We have already said that the Word of the Lord invites us to approach the Throne of Grace with confidence, not begging, not pleading with the Lord in a servile way, but asking the Lord for blessings with all the security of a son who approaches a father that you love him, and that you have a good relationship with him or her.

Ephesians chapters 1 and 2 tell us about the rich heritage of the believer. We remember those words right? "So you are no longer foreigners or upstarts but fellow citizens of the saints and members of the family of God." There in Ephesians 1 and 2 the apostle Paul says that he prays for the Ephesians to receive a special revelation, a spirit of wisdom so that they will be able to understand how great the inheritance, how superabundant the blessing of God for those who have believed in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

It is like Paul saying that the blessing that God has given us is so great, so incomprehensibly rich and abundant that by ourselves we are not able to understand it. Paul says that a special revelation, an extraordinary endowment of faith is required for us to be able to understand the breadth and breadth, the depth of God's blessing and the inheritance that we have received through Jesus Christ.

And First Peter chapter 2 verses 9 onwards also says something very precious, it says: "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people acquired by God." How beautiful that image so abundant in its positivity. We are a chosen lineage, a holy nation, a people purchased by God. In other words you see those images, there is nothing of that useless servant, that servant who has no value, that servant who does not deserve any information or explanation from his Lord.

Although that is true as we said in a judicial way, the existential reality of our life is that God treats us in a preferential way, we are royalty in the eyes of God. And Paul adds: "So that you may announce the virtues of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light; you who were not once a people but are now God's people, in another time you had not obtained mercy but now you have achieved mercy."

There we have the two sides of the coin of the identity of the believer. At one time we were not a people, in a sense now we are actually like that person who did not deserve any blessing but who has been taken and entered into a spiritual citizenship. But on the other hand we have obtained mercy and we are God's people, and not just any people but a people acquired with precious blood through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary, all for the goodness of God.

I say here that: "we must be deeply grateful and love God with all our hearts. We must serve him with all enthusiasm and give him the totality of our lives. When we have done everything we must say: we are useless servants because we have done exactly what God he asked us to do it. "

Before concluding this series it occurs to me that I would like to discuss with you one last passage found in Philemon, but we are going to leave it for our next meditation, which illustrates in a very graphic way what we are saying about that double identity of the believer. : useless servant and also adopted son, and I believe that the way in which God deals with us will be made clear through this passage found in the epistle to Philemon. My beloved brothers, God bless you, and until our next meditation.