Hollywood, CA 2011: Riverboat gamblers sometimes win big. While Jeopardy contestants have ready access to their stash levels, those dealing with God often woefully overestimate what they have in the tank and the bank. Get a sober accounting today.

From Trent Ling:

Disciples of Jesus may feel relatively fortified or even invincible as God relents from time to time.  Unfortunately, many get fast and loose with the Gospel and its inerrant truths, confidently going about their own business, “Hey, if God’s good with me, why not…?”  However, later, many painfully come to realize that God not destroying them did not necessarily mean that they had it going on.  We must distinguish God’s mercy from God’s favor.  Confusion of the two has culminated in an entire highway system leading the ignorant to very bad spiritual places.

“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.  He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”  2 Peter 3:9.

God mercifully bears with us.  He gets no jolly getting after us or burying us.  Waiting and waiting, God looks for us to get a clue and prove it through repentance.  Look around the world.  How many times do men wonder why God doesn’t intervene?  Of course, when God joins in any fray, it goes catastrophically badly for mankind.  He waits and waits, expecting our consciences and his Word to prevail from our own modest realizations and humilities.  Rather than being emboldened for status quo by God not yet destroying us, let us take the opportunity provided by mercy to turn it around spiritually.

“May the Lord judge between you and me,” King David said to King Saul.  1 Samuel 24:12.  On matters of dispute and disagreement, God will ultimately weigh in and judge.  In such cases, God measures and metes out favor, not mercy.  Those who misjudge mercy as favor receive a rude awakening from which they often never recover.  You cannot go to battle armed with mercy for yourself.  You have to take the favor of the Lord as David did.  Along the same lines, Paul advised his brethren that he was “looking for what may be credited to (their) accounts.”  Philippians 4:17.  Paul knew that accounts with God resembled favor from God.  Mercy is great, but comes with a ticking clock as Jezebel found out when her time to repent expired abruptly in Revelation 2:21.

Another law of sin even further exacerbates confusion between mercy and favor.  “The sins of some men are obvious, reaching the place of judgment ahead of them; the sins of others trail behind them.”  1 Timothy 5:24.  The trailing sins, which eventually horse-collar and drop the sinner from behind, may have left the illusion to the nearsighted sinner that he was not in sin.  Remember, just because we haven’t been tackled, arrested, and destroyed, does not mean that we are spiritually well.  Consulted earnestly, the Scriptures would sort this out for us.

I highly recommend that sobriety be brought to bear:  we are objects more earmarked for mercy than for favor.  In humility, we should adopt the default position that mercy fits us and that favor seems too good for us.  Then, we must follow the Spirit as confirmed by the Scriptures and talk out our deal and hear those with a clue according to the Bible (perhaps check out the audio podcast message, “Who’s Who?” to understand the indicators of someone with a clue).

Very unfortunately, like animals caught in traps (2 Peter 2:12), we who confuse mercy and favor shun the trumpet warnings which God so generously provides, and find ourselves beyond repair or willingness when the verdict returns that though we thought we were God’s favorite loyalist, God has merely been enduring us and awaiting our awakening to serve Him for real.

Please avoid and sidestep this common yet unnecessary trap of misunderstanding.  Let us gear up, really think about it, and exceed the brute examples set by mindless wildebeests in this whirlwind life!

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