Picking up the check

On Sunday we were talking about how Jesus came to give abundant and full life to his people.
As a result, followers of Jesus have always recognized life as a gift to be enjoyed.

Want to pass along something Chris Reites wrote this week that says it perfectly.

Have you ever had someone pick up the check for you at a restaurant? This doesn’t happen to me very often because I usually take extraordinary means to avoid it. In the past, I’ve been known to chase waiters down after a meal, fake a mid-meal bathroom break to speak to the waiter privately, or even cause a distraction when the bill comes so I can be the first to grab it. It’s not that I don’t appreciate it when someone else picks up the check, because I do, it’s just that being stubbornly independent, it’s very hard for me to let someone do anything for me, especially pay for something for me. Well this weekend, I got beat. I had already asked the waiter when I sat down to put me on a separate bill, but to my surprise, at the end of the meal, I never got a check. I tracked down the waiter who told me that after I had spoken to him, one of the other people I was with had given him their credit card and insisted on paying for everyone including me (a trick of my very own that I should have seen coming!). Whenever this happens, my first thought is always “I wish I hadn’t ordered so much,” or “how can I even things up and pay them back?” (Which of course is the exact opposite of what the person buying your meal wants you to think!)
Allowing someone to pick up the check for us once in awhile is a great reminder of God’s gift of grace. God isn’t worried about being paid back; there’s nothing we can give to God that he doesn’t already have. And God doesn’t look at our record of sin to see if we’ve “ordered too much” before offering to pay for it. In fact, He’s already paid for the entire thing.

In other words, He wants to buy us a meal, watch us enjoy it, and we can be confident that when the bill comes, He’s already got it covered.

Ephesians 2:4-8
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God…

Thanks Chris.

Enjoy the day…its been paid for.
Adam