Dependence and Grace
There's a lot of talk about the nature of dependence in this podcast and I'm not sure it does a good job at answering the questions I was trying to resolve. Here are the questions...
The bible talks about slavery - to your money, to your reputation, even to your religion. In short - slavery to sin. We defined this a basically a symbiotic relationship between the slave and the master. Though it might not appear so, the master is as much dependent on the slave as the slave is to the master. The politician needs the voters. The voters want what the politician is promising. The wealthy person needs the labor pool to grow his wealth. The worker needs the wealthy person to pay his salary. You can go down the list, and you'll find that every master depends on the slave and every slave depends on the master. Further, all of these earthly dependencies have an end point... death. When you're dead in that dependent arrangement, that's it! You die in your sin. That's what that means! You lose!
So, the question is this. If I just change my dependence to God, why is that not slavery too? And the answer came so simply (after much meditation). There are two components to this. First, God doesn't need you! Second, God is eternal! Yes, you become dependent on your very creator. You always have been. But your Creator is not dependent on you. What you discover is grace! When you give up your earthly dependencies to trust in God, you gain an infinite gift, and He expects nothing in return. Your only requirement? Faith! He gave you the ability to choose. Faith is the expression of love of the Father. It is not just saying I believe in God (Even the demons believe!). Faith means that you are depending on God. You are placing your trust in Him. You love Him! The Jews confronted by Jesus couldn't even muster that. I hope you can.
Episode Link:
https://www.rabbitholesandmeditations.com/dependence-and-grace/
