The God Who Doesn't Pay Attention

I have a question for you today:  Do any of you know “The God Who Doesn’t Pay Attention”?  Do you know that God? 

Your relationship with this God goes something like this:  you make a deal with him, you put together some kind of agreement—with really good stuff in it, like reading the bible through in a year, supporting a missionary or a child in India, talking to people about Jesus and sharing your faith, giving up alcohol for a year, or, even worse if you’re a woman, giving up chocolate for a year—so that god will give you something better that you don’t have now, like a better job, a better car, a better home, a better spouse(!), or a better something, and you follow through but He doesn’t?  You keep your end of the deal (you actually start supporting a missionary), but God doesn’t come through with his.  That’s “The God Who Doesn’t Pay Attention,” that’s what I’m talking about.  And you struggle with this God, trying to figure out what kind of agreement, or what covenant you can make with him that he’ll honor and actually complete.

After all, you’re trying to work with him.

And somewhere in the course of your struggle with “The God Who Doesn’t Pay Attention,” it occurs to you that maybe God isn’t bargaining with you, that maybe he’s not playing the covenant game with you at all.  Keep that thought.

In fact, God is not making covenants with people at all; he’s not doing it.  The truth is that God is paying attention to only one covenant now, and he made it with Jesus only—you simply get all the benefits of their covenant, of their agreement.  God kept you out of the covenant equation—and keeps you out of it—and the pressure to keep it so he can give you everything as a gift forever.  Eternally.

Hebrews 9:15 says that, “. . .Christ is the mediator of a new covenant (He’s the one who brings us together with God and keeps us together, no matter what), that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance...”  (Italics mine.)  It’s all a gift.  Forever.

So the next time you think that God isn’t paying attention to your attempts at bargaining for yourself, of making an agreement for yourself, remember this:  You’re right—he isn’t.  He’s paying attention to Jesus—and you’re far better off because of it.

(This is a transcript of yesterday's video. . .in case watching a video isn't your thing.)