A prophet came to Ahab king of Israel and said, “This is what the LORD says: ‘Do you see this entire great army? Watch, I am handing it over to you today so that you may know that I am Yahweh.'”     1 Kings 20:13 HCSB

This morning I was studying 1 Kings chapter 20. This is a really cool historical narrative that I felt compelled to share. Ben-hadad was king of Aram. He had 32 kings aligned with him and a massive army. He went up to King Ahab’s capital in Samaria and began to fight against it. He besieged the city and demanded King Ahab hand over his silver and gold and the best women and children in his city. Ahab surrendered and agreed to do as he had asked, but then Ben-hadad went too far. He wanted to send men in to plunder the palace and King Ahab’s servant’s houses.

King Ahab sought advice from his counsel, and they told him not to comply but to resist Ben-hadad. Now remember Ben-hadad has this huge army. Now it does mention here several times that Ben-hadad is drinking to the point of being drunk, but that’s a blog for another day. Anyway, a prophet of God comes to King Ahab and tells him that God is going to hand this vast army over to him. So, Ben-hadad keeps drinking thinking it will be nothing to take out this little town and he barely escapes alive.

Now what is so awesome about this story is that Ahab was not a Christian. He had been worshiping false gods. He had not prayed for God’s help, and he certainly didn’t deserve God’s help. But God was there and helped him anyway. Why? Because God wanted to show Him that He was the one true God.

You may look at this and say, “Why strive to be a Christian and be like Christ (Ephesians 5:1) if God is going to help those that don’t deserve it?”

Well, I’m glad you asked. You see there were times in my life when God reached out a hand to help me when I didn’t deserve it. I still don’t deserve it. None of us do.

Romans 3:23 tells us that we all sin and fall short of the glory of God. We are all miserable, rotten sinners in need of a Savior. God sent his one and only begotten Son to save us from our sinful selves and to give us the one and only way to be saved (John 3:16). Romans 5:8 tells us that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He doesn’t wait for us to get right; He’s already paid the price. We just have to be willing to accept Him as our Savior.

Now there are many battles in the Bible where God delivered the enemy into the hands of His people. There are many righteous men that went into battles that should have been impossible for them to win, but God stepped in and gave them victory.

I strive to please God because He has been so good to me. He has loved me when I didn’t deserve it. He has fought my battles that were impossible for me to win. He has walked beside me in the fire and the flood. I will never be good enough to even deserve a crumb from His table, but He has prepared a home for me in heaven. He is going to bring me to a place where I will walk on streets of gold and have city walls built from precious gemstones and have gates of pearls. My friend, I don’t deserve any of that. My pastor said it best last night when he said, “If we all got what we deserved, we would bust hell wide open.”

I pray to God each and every morning when I wake up to give me strength to go throughout the day and help me to do the things that please Him. I want to bring glory, honor and praise to Him because He has done so much for me. I don’t deserve to be called His child, but He tells me I am. He loves me in spite of myself.

He wants to love you that way too. But you see He will never force Himself on you. He waits with outstretched arms for a sinner to come home. He rejoices when His prodigal son returns. The choice is yours. You can keep living your life your way and hoping that He will come through when you call, or you can turn to Him. You can surrender your life to Him and vow to do things His way.

I will never deserve His love, His mercy, His grace and His salvation, but I will spend the rest of my days trying to be the best I can be for Him. I will strive to let others see Him through me because that’s the least I can do for Him after all He’s done for me.

Have a great day!