Favoured by God! – Friday, 26 January

“It was God [personally present] in Christ, reconciling and restoring the world to favor with Himself, not counting up and holding against [men] their trespasses [but cancelling them], and committing to us the message of reconciliation (of the restoration to favor).”
2 Corinthians 5:19 AMPC

Through Jesus, God restored mankind into favour with Himself – and we had nothing to do with it. That’s a challenging thought for the person with a performance-based mentality who would be saying “but surely you have to do something to obtain God’s favour!”

God doesn’t treat us as we deserve (mercy) – He treats us far better (grace). Grace can be defined in many ways but one of the definitions isundeserved favour. You may be saying “but I’ve done nothing to deserve God’s favour – surely I need to do something good!?” That’s the point! Grace can never be deserved, earned or achieved – it’s a gift to be received! (Ephesians 2:8)

Sin (trespasses) kept us out of God’sfavour and God knew that we would never be able to deal with the sin sufficiently to enter into His favour, that is why God reached out through Jesus Christ and reconciled and restored the world to favour with Himself. He did something that we could never do and now we have something that we could never have obtained in and of ourselves. He was made what we were (sin) so that we could be made what He is (righteous – right with God) (2 Corinthians 5:21). Being righteous isn’t something you do and become, it’s something you believe and receive – we are made right (justified) by faith not by works (Romans 5:1).  

God is not angry with anyone and has paved the way for anyone to come to Him and freely receive abundant life (including blessing andfavour) – it’s all freely offered to everyone (Titus 2:11)! If you want to see the favour of God working in your life all you need to do is accept the free gift of salvation in Christ (which makes you 100% righteous). Then, seek to understand that you are righteous by faith and not by works – understanding brings fruitfulness. Then, boldly declare that you have God’s favour, and boldly expect good things to happen in your life!