Meat and Bones – Favor

Greetings Dear Reader,

I remember how much I wished to earn the favor of adults when I was a child.  I had no idea how elusive that would prove to be in my family.  I also had no idea how taxing my creativity and lack of inhibition would prove for the adults charged with caring for me.

It seems that my younger self would do almost anything to earn positive regard from adults.  It also seems that earning favor seems to be futile cycle.  One gets the positive regard based on what one does but then the security of that moment wears away.

Earned favor does not last.  This is why earning favor from God is not an option.  This is why the Father gives us unmerited favor.  He loves us unconditionally.  He provides grace and mercy and Christ’s expense so that we have free access to him via our aforementioned faith. 

Throughout the centuries the church has tried to impose mechanisms to earn God’s favor.  Most of those have been in order to control what others do relative to faith.  Using the Father as a tool to manipulate others may be the highest form of taking God’s name in vain.  He never asked us to earn his favor.  He paid the highest price to prove that we already have it.

The meat of the matter is that the Father wants only the best for us.  He does not demand that we earn his favor.  He asks only that we follow his Son in faith in the light of the favor he has already granted.  If we walk in the light as he is in the light we have real fellowship.  It is in this that we find the acceptance we crave freely given and filled with love.

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store.”

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