Impartial

1 Peter 1:17 (NLT)

And remember that the heavenly Father to whom you pray has no favorites. He will judge or reward you according to what you do. So you must live in reverent fear of him during your time as “foreigners in the land.”

Good morning Zebras,

Last month my herd pondered on the impartial nature of God which is an attribute I haven’t given much thought to.

To be honest my first thought was “I don’t want God to be impartial; I want Him to like me best!” But the more I thought about it, the more I realized it really is a good thing God is impartial because if God was not impartial, He could like me best, but He could also like me least.

My daughter had a teacher once who was anything but impartial.  If he liked you, you got good grades, if he didn’t…well…  The first semester Katherine didn’t play the game.  She did her work and she did it well, but she didn’t suck up.  She got a “C”.  The second semester she changed her tactics.   She did the same quality of work but she went out of her way to make the teacher like her, this time it earned her an “A.”

God is not like that.  Verses out of Romans, Galatians, Ephesians and Colossians testify to the fact that God doesn’t show favoritism.  He judges each man’s work impartially and He rewards and punishes accordingly.  You can’t get away with doing something wrong just because He likes you.

God offers salvation, through the cross of Christ, to everyone regardless of their race, age, or economic status and He rewards everyone who accepts.  And He continues to reward those people who do His will and work here on earth, storing up for them treasure in heaven and giving them a peace which surpasses all understanding.

Which is great and it should motivate us to do more for the kingdom knowing at some point we will have to give an account to an impartial judge of what we have done with the blessings He has given us.  Like the story of the talents, God will reward those people who have used His gifts for His glory.

But it is also a little scary for the very same reason.  Who of us really wants to stand before an impartial God and defend how we have spent our lives?  Only Christ can stand before God having lived a life totally devoted to His service.  Everyone else is going to fall short.

Pondering the impartial nature of God has been a roller coaster of emotions: sad not to be God’s favorite, happy to know I would be rewarded for my good works, motivated to go out and do more, depressed to realize how little I’ve done, and finally grateful that I have been saved by grace, which is a gift of God, and not as result of my works.

Love,

Jill