"For Thy Sake"

  "For Thy Sake"

     "I have learned by experience that the LORD hath blessed me for thy sake" (Genesis 30:27).

     

     Laban's acknowledgment that God's favor not only rested upon Jacob, but also flowed through him, presents a vividly clear description of the believer's relationship to God through the Lord Jesus Christ.

    "He hath made us accepted in the Beloved" (Ephesians 1:6).

    We cannot independently access God's acceptance and favor.  We must have a mediator who unites God and ourselves, a go between whose merits make possible the establishment and maintenance of relationship.  "There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (I Timothy 2:5).  In His Son, our Heavenly Father provided such a bridge of grace, applying the righteousness of Christ to us just as He applied our sins to Christ when He died on the cross.  The blessing of God thus flows to us in direct proportion to the curse of God known by the Lord Jesus at Calvary.  "He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (II Corinthians 5:21).  The longer we walk with the Lord, the more we discover in far greater measure than Laban the reality of "I have learned by experience that the Lord hath blessed me for Thy sake."  Christ's imputed righteousness means that God's primary working in our lives involves the person and work of Christ.  We are "complete in Him" (Colossians 2:10).

    This explains a lot.  Indeed, every believer who has known the Lord for any length of time discovers that He is so much better to us than we begin to deserve.  Our response  of faith and submission to Him matters, of course, but we realize that our Heavenly Father's gracious mercy far more proceeds from some other source, and some other fount. Christ is the source and the fount.  Again, to His trusting children, God gives to us what the Lord Jesus deserves, just as on the cross He gave to the Lord Jesus what we deserve.  The more we discover such truth in the pages of Scripture and the more we "learn by experience", the more motivated and enabled we find ourselves to live in a manner worthy of such freely given favor.  "Let us have grace, that we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear" (Hebrews 12:28).

    For those who could never pave their own path into the presence and acceptance of God, the Lord Jesus is the way (John 14:6).  We have no other, nor do we need any other.  "I have learned by experience that the Lord hath blessed me for Thy sake."  We can utter no truer words to our Savior, and no truth more instills in believers the grateful love that serves as the rightful motivation of our walk with the Lord.  Our Heavenly Father sees us in His Son, and works in us accordingly.  We must see ourselves in such gracious and holy light, and then live in the wonder that leads to worship.

"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God."

(Romans 5:1-2)

"Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption."

(I Corinthians 1:30)

Weekly Memory Verse 

   A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.

(Proverbs 15:1)