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DEVOTION / Don't try to bribe God

DEVOTION / Don't try to bribe God

Devotions, Blog

For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes (Deuteronomy 10:17).

Bribing God

Have you ever try to bride God?

Perhaps your conversation with God went like this:

  • Lord, if you heal me, I will come to worship every Sunday from now on.

  • Father, bring my daughter home safely and I will give donate $10,000 to a charity.

  • Jesus, if you help me land this new job, I'll volunteer 10 hours of time to my church each month.

Bad approach. We can't bribe God. He is not impressed by what we offer him. It's already his. The time we spend in worship is his. The money in our bank account is his. All 168 hours in each week are his.

"The great God, mighty and awesome…accepts no bribes."

No need to bribe God

The stunning fact is that there is never a time we need to bribe God. He is always more than willing to forgive, to give, to answer our prayers, to heal our hurts, and to remove our worries.

He is not only "God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome." He is the LORD, Yahweh. That's the Old Testament name for God that emphasizes he is the God of full, free, faithful, and forever grace.

Grace guarantees his favor

God defines what his name Yahweh means when he told Moses who he is. "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin" (Exodus 34:6,7).

There's no need to bribe God. Through Jesus, he is ever the compassionate and gracious God. "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life," John writes. "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him" (1 John 5:13-15).