Look at all that we have been given in Jesus Christ; He determines to love us, adopts us, makes us holy and blameless, redeems, reveals His mystery, and gives us an inheritance that is even greater. Why would God give us so much? Scripture tells us it is for two reasons:

1. His glory. The more we are given, the greater the cross, the deeper His love, the greater His glory. As we gaze upon all He has revealed, all He has given, all He has provided we can only be in awe of all that He has done. He created us to find joy in His glory and to be satisfied in His glory. His glory is paramount.

2. He loves us so much. I think this is hard for us to believe because we see how unlovely we are, however, God loves us so much. It reminds me of a game I play with my daughter. Kennedy and I started playing this hand squeeze game where we don’t use words. I will take her hand and without words I will squeeze her hand three times to say, “I love you?” One squeeze for every word. She will then squeeze my hand two times to say, “How much?” Then I will squeeze her hand really hard and long to say, “So much.” Sometimes she will giggle and say, “That much!”

God loves us so much. Scripture teaches us that God loves us while we were yet His enemies. You and I wouldn’t love our friends this much, but God does it while we are still enemies. The question we have to ask is, “When does it all apply to me individually.?” Scriptures teaches us it is when we believe. When we believe that we are separated from God because of our sin and when Jesus died He died in our place. Simply believe and respond.

Sometimes people think we come to Scripture because it tells us what to do, how to be, a good book to live by, however, the purpose of Scripture is to see who God is and respond. By His grace He will show us all that He is and our hearts and minds will be open and we will respond. Not respond to religion, a church, a pastor, but respond to Jesus. Through Scripture He grabs our heart, He speaks to us, and we can’t help but respond.

For some of us right now it may be hard to respond because all we see is our debt, our stress, our fear, our sickness, and Scripture is lifting our eyes off of those things and reminding us who God is, all we have been given, and we simply need to respond.