Amazing Grace...

I don't know if you've ever stopped and thought about it, but some biblical duties are just strange.

Take hope.

We're commanded all over the Bible to hope in God. 1 Peter is just one example, "set your hope full on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ."

I think we get so used to commands like that, we don't recognize how crazy awesome it is. What kind of God do we serve? A God who commands us to look forward to the future with a confident expectation that He's going to do us all kinds of good.

Or how about prayer?

I should be begging God to get to talk to Him. I guarantee if I got off the internet right now, picked up my phone, called the White House and tried to talk to George Bush, they'd be like who are you? Why don't you go out and buy yourself a clue. Important men don't have time to talk to people like me. Even most important Christian men are going to have a hard time fitting me into their schedules.

Not God.

He makes the most important people in the world today look like peons, and yet He is every ready to take my call. What's more, I open up the Scripture and I find him pleading with me to pray. What kind of God do we serve? A God who actually commmands us to pray.

Sometimes when we talk about the grace of God we focus so much on how he forgives us when we break His commands, that we forget how gracious He is to just give us the commands.

I love the fact that God cares about me enough to tell me what to do and that when He does tell me what to do, He calls on me to do things that are like beyond my wildest expectations of possible good.