Will a Just and Holy God help the unworthy?

I have a deep and abiding appreciation for the names God uses of Himself in the scriptures. I have very good reason for this which find's itself rooted in my own experiences. A number of years ago I went through what our country's monarch once described as an 'annus horibilis' A horrible year. It was a time when I was barely keeping my head above water. I had problems in the workplace, a serious lack of job security, costs were mounting up and life was perpetually difficult. This just built up and built up over the year until I reached a point of just wanting to give up and walk away. I won't go into the detail of all the other issues which were heaped on top of that but nearing the end of a year where my relationship with God was in existance but not much more could be said of it I was about ready to cave in. This is all the more significant because I am naturally a person who will stubbornly refuse to give up. In desperation I decided to pray. {something I only did from time to time in that year.} All that time I was trusting in my own ways to solve my own problems and nothing went right. That day I prayed I told God how I felt. I told him I felt like giving up. I told Him I was sorry and I needed His help. I said a lot of things and I meant every one and for the first time in ages I genuinely listened for His voice. I didn't care what He said. I was at an end of myself. I had nothing to lose. God could say what He wanted and I would listen. This was the time I got a very clear word from the Lord. A time that started a pattern in my life that continues to this day. He said "The things that have pursued you so far will not pursue you into the new year. I will turn it around." When I recieved that from God it was with such a sense of assurance that I knew that I knew it would happen. It is hard to explain how someone could so clearly and emphatically believe something when there was absolutely no material evidence for it. In fact all the evidence was pointing in exactly the opposite direction but I believed it. I has no doubt that I had heard from God and no doubt things were going to change and that is exactly what happened. The company I worked for went from a position of deep insecurity to finding a buyer/investor. The serious fundamental problems with the cleaning company I worked for part time suddenly turned round and I had job security and no worries about whether I would have enough money coming in. Furthermore, while previously I was living almost week to week trying to keep my head above water, now it all changed. I had overtime thrown at me hand over fist. It was almost too much to do but it dug me out of a very big hole. The previous year has financial reverse after reverse. Every time I thought I was on top of things something would come up. An unexpected bill or I would be ripped off by somebody. It was one long nightmare. All of that just stopped dead in it's tracks. Before, I tried to sort everything out myself and lived in an almost constant state of insecurity. Now I felt it was easy to trust God. Now I'm not saying that if you trust God everything in life is easy and goes your way but if you relinquish control and trust Him and do what He tells you then you will be in His will which is the safest place to be. Even in the midst of a storm you will walk through that storm with your head held high because you don't walk alone. {and this has far more significance and truth spiritually than the words of a football anthem.} I will share a bit more about this. I received this word from God at the end of 2005. During that year my wife and I had gone to her home country, Ghana. She needed to go to the British consulate to renew her visa which had expired. Now those in the know about immigration issues will be aware that the number of people from the west coast African countries who are here legally are in the minority. The British officials are well aware of this so you can be expected as a matter of course to be made to jump through many hoops so to speak and to be given a hard time. {and that's if you have done nothing wrong} We had a big, big problem. My wife had overstayed on her visa by some months. They could quite easily have just point blank refused to renew it. There are many stories in Ghana of how the immigration authorities make it very difficult to get into the U.K and there are many people who try to get here, usually by dishonest means. What transpired was the one {very big} bright point in a dreadful year. Although I was only praying occassionally I had prayed for help on this one. I had met many African people in the past and was well aware of the nightmare scenario of visa difficulties so it was one of those things in which I knew I was helpless. I prayed for help. Was this it? Would I ever see my wife again? O.K, God is good but will he help us? Did we deserve His help? I was certain we did not. It was then {on probably the only occasion I stopped to listen} he spoke and told me to trust in His grace. Just like the time I described earlier in this blog, it was accompanied with a sense of assurance and faith. It was difficult though. There was no sense of submission to God which explains why I was a lot more unsteady in my faith than I was at the end of the year when God spoke to me. Anyway, we got into the consulate and sat down outside under a metal roof shelter with a crowd of around 100 people and as we sat {expecting to wait for hours to be seen} we all watched as a Ghanaian security official pulled a man out and began to berate him. It seems this man was suspected of bringing a fraudulent identity with him. The man was told to wait in the corner of the yard and not move and to stand with his hands on the back of his head while the security official berated him. He left that man there in the 30 degree centigrade heat. When he put his hands down the security man got angry and kept hitting him with his baton across his legs until his hands stayed on his head. {naturally he brought his hands down to protect himself which only aggrivate the security person.} Needless to say this only heightened the sense of nervousness about our application when my wife had overstayed her welcome in the u.k. To cut a long story short we filed the application and a date was set for a formal meeting with a consulate official. The date was set for some weeks after I was due to return to the u.k so I waved goodbye at the airport unsure of whether I would ever see her again. This was my situation. On the one hand looking at our circumstances and knowing full well this was a very bad and difficult situation and on the other remembering God had told me to trust in His grace. In other words trust in His unmerited, undeserved and freely given favour. Our unworthiness was being trumped by God's gracious character. It was as if God was saying, "This is who I am, Trust me for who I am. I am the God of grace. My dealings with you are based on grace, not merit." Something kept me believing this but it was still a nervous time. One day, back in the u.k while I was speaking with my wife on the phone she told me she had been to a church for prayer and the pastor told her he had a 'special anointing' for getting people a visa. She would have to pay him though to recieve this 'anointed prayer' She assured me she didn't give him any money. There is something I detest about some of these money preachers whether they are found in a local church or on t.v. They prostitute faith and make a mockery of grace. During that call I felt very strongly that I must trust in God's grace. I personally believe that God hates this religious money racket. I had a sense that if I trusted His grace everything would be fine. Nothing we could give {and we didn't have anything to give anyway} would have made the slightest bit of diference. So here is what happened. On the day of the interview and expecting a full interrogation my wife turns up at the consulate and is called to the meeting. The official sat there with all the paperwork and asked,"So, when are you flying back to England? My wife replied, "Please, I don't have a ticket yet because I don't have a visa?" The official handed over the passport with a visa inside and concluded the meeting with. "Here is your passport, your visa is inside. Have a nice trip" Thats it. No argument, no interrogation, no hastle. No difficulty in 'why you were in England after your visa expired.' Just 'here is your passport. I mean how blatent an example of God's grace can you get. This is virtually unheard of. When I got back to England from Ghana I had to wait in the tunnel passage between the aeroplane doors and the airport building for the best part of an hour as several very serious looking British detectives and officials went through the passengers with a fine tooth comb. Can you believe that. She just walks into the consulate and they basically say "Here is your passport, have a nice trip" Anyone who knows the system will either think I am making this up, I am extremely lucky or you know something of the same God I know. God is truly a God of grace. You cannot earn His favour or reach his standard even if you tried. When we come before God in prayer He tells us to come with confidence before the throne of grace. In other words 'Come before the throne of the unworthy.' There is a place you can come to where the only qualification is that you are not qualified. If you are one of the 'unqualified'. If you are one of those who doesn't meet God's perfect standard. {and I have news for you. That is all of us} then you qualify. The throne of grace is a special place set up for you to approach God. How can a sinful unqualified person possibly come before an infinitely Holy God who is described as a consuming fire? It can happen because of the blood of his own Son that was shed for our sins. He has made a way when there was no way. Therefore we can come before the throne of grace with confidence, not in ourselves but in the shed blood of His Son Jesus whose blood atones for all our sins. To trust in the grace of God is to trust in God for who He is. He is by nature gracious. The Hebrew scriptures reveal that perfect government is intertwined with grace. Our world and everything in it was established by the free grace of God. We benefit every day from the grace of God. We are standing on grace. The steadfastness of the very ground beneath our feet testifies to God's creative grace. Unmerited, unearned and undeserved, freely given. Every breath we take is the result of grace. The world which God created and designed and sustains is ruled over by a God whose governmental nature is a grace nature. These were things I was only later to discover theologically but I experienced them by revelation and experience. Our God truly operates on the basic of grace because grace is a thread which runs right through the heart of His essential character. It is part of God's very identity. shalom...Steve Song link : YOU ARE THE PERFECT AND RIGHTEOUS GOD - by Steve + Vikki Cook {The song reflects some of what I have shared here. The link below can be pasted into your search bar - I hope this song will be as much a blessing and inspiration to you as it is to me.} http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZnGHJMrui4