Gleanings – Do Less, Receive More!

Proper 11, Thursday, July 25, 2013

Acts 15:1-11

“But we believe that we shall be saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

Gentiles and Jews together, being saved by grace. What a beautiful image! A right relationship with God is available and the means comes from God himself.

Peter, a Jew, is defending Gentiles. Why place upon them religion, burdens they cannot keep? We have not been able to bear them. How will they?

Too often we try to bear the burden rather than receive the grace. We labor and strive and sometimes (often?) exhaust ourselves. Does God want us to be good and moral? Absolutely! But the power to be good and moral, transformed into the likeness of Jesus, comes only in acknowledging that we have no power to save ourselves. It comes in accepting the gift and what follows, the Holy Spirit.

Do less. Receive more!