Encouragement

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It seems that the old expression, 'there is no such thing as a free lunch' has been proved again in a Sydney court this week. Last June a Sydney woman must have received the shock of her life when she logged onto her computer and then to her bank. Maybe it was something she did each day or maybe only once a month, but on that particular day this unsuspecting lady logged onto her bank account and received quite a surprise. We don't know how much was in her account or how much she was expecting, but on the day in question when she logged on there was more money in her account than she remembered. In fact, the account contained about $320,000 more than she had anticipated being there.

Now I am not sure what you would do if you discovered that an international bank had mistakenly deposited $320,000 in your account, but this woman set about to transfer the money to various other accounts she held, I guess before the mistake was discovered. She distributed it amongst a few places and reportedly even deposited some of it in an offshore account especially opened to receive the money.

Of course the error was discovered and not surprisingly the woman has been arrested and charged with obtaining financial advantage by deception. She has now been let out on bail and will face court on the 18 April. There is another old expression, 'When something looks too good to be true, it is too good to be true'.

The heart of the Christian message contains a most unexpected and unmerited gift. So many think that the message of Christianity is 'Be good and God will love you'. However the real message of Christ is that we are all poor and needy and God is willing to make an outrageous and unearned deposit into our spiritual savings account. While we are ignoring and at times even abusing God, He reaches out to us with the gift of His loving Son to offer us forgiveness, reconciliation and a fresh start. It is almost too good to believe that our Creator would offer us such love and mercy. It is not a mistake but a calculated move on the part of a loving Heavenly Father to rescue his lost children through an act of outrageous love.

The good news of God's love for us in Christ seems too good to be true - but it is true!

"You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5: 6-8 (NIV)

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