Ascend Global

God is generous with His grace, but He's also thorough with His discipline. Jonah did not need to be saved from the fish; the fish was prepared by God to save him. God sends storms in our lives - never to pay us back, but always to get us back. Distress is the force that overpowers intellect, theology, rationale or resistance, to drive us back to the person. Sometimes storms are the very thing that save us.

Forgiveness was never the issue. The Torah was given so forgiven people would know how to live, in order to be blessed. Your forgiveness was unconditional, but your blessing was conditional. You could live your whole life forgiven, saved to the bone, born again, child of God, I'll see you in heaven one day - but yet miss the whole blessing; that you live in darkness, disrepair, death. May you never say again: it's because my father ate sour grapes that I'm like this. No, when someone eats sour grapes, they are the ones whose teeth get set on edge.

Sometimes we focus a lot on the grace of God, the goodness of God, the mercy of God we forget or overlook that there is another side, that God is also holy and He's just. His justice requires that He deal with how we've governed our life and what we've done in our life. All of you have an appointment to keep with this. There is no exception. Matt 16:27 I come and my reward is with me, to give to every man according to his work.