Question from a friend:
God told his people he’d restore what the locusts took and told Job he’d restore his joy and he also made promises to Abraham and Moses and others. Just because he did it for them doesn’t mean he’ll do it for EVERYBODY…. A lot of people never found joy, never had lives restored and were killed. Is there a book with all the promises of God and do they apply to EVERYBODY that believes?
Reply as I considered this question:
I understand God’s blessings as fulfillment of promises that are communicated to and available to all.
Every promise I read has an invitation that precedes it……”if you…” trust me, go where I send you, are obedient, honor your parents, are faithful to my Word, teach your children, delight in the Lord, etc. “then this blessing will be given to you.”
Most people only hear and grasp the desire for the blessing of the promise and fail to notice or don’t embrace the condition of the invitation that makes it possible. Accepting the invitation, embracing the precedent of the promise, is deemed as “righteousness” and allows God to draw near and grant the blessing in fellowship with us. It is this accepting and receiving in fellowship that make such people “his people”…. they know and trust him. Therefore, a “blessing” is something received in the context of a relationship that results from accepting
an invitation. It is a gift, but it is predicated on the receiver’s knowledge of and desire to receive the gift from the giver because of the relationship.
Grace, on the other hand, can be thought of as a gift given simply because one is in a place where the gift is being given out. Like being handed out from a wagon with no questions or relationship required. It has no preceding invitation or notice and comes simply as an unexpected free gift for which one has done nothing. It may be given because a need or want exists that may or may not be recognized by the one who is actually receiving it. There may be no awareness of the gift having been available before even as it is being handed to the recipient. The recipient may or may not understand the value of the gift in the moment and may not even appreciate it after it has been received and opened.
We refer to such gifts of God as “common grace” ….. not common because they are not valuable, but common because anyone may receive them without having sought them out or having done anything to be considered deserving or righteous.
Extraordinary grace of God is shown in the gift of God’s Son, Jesus Christ to be the redemption for the consequences of sin to all humanity. That grace that leads to belief in Jesus will be received as a blessing by those who hear and respond to the invitation with belief. Those who hear the invitation and respond, believing in God and in his goodness in desiring that all should have the opportunity to be saved, find that salvation is not dependent on their own ability to bring a worthy sacrifice, but only on the basis that they are loved by their creator. If the invitation to believe and accept the gracious gift of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord is accepted, salvation and adoption as a son or daughter of God are blessings of the promise that one receives by grace through faith.
Ephesians 2:8-9
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.
Our faith itself, the capacity to believe in Jesus, is a gift of grace, as is the gift of the object of our faith, in whom we believe, Jesus Christ. All of this is possible through the work of God’s Holy Spirit in the world, moving among his people and bringing God’s Word alive to us, in us, and through us! (CBB 7/26/22)