his name's sake

Sometimes I start thinking I'm something special. I live a blessed life, with good relationships and a decent standard of living. And I'm loved by God, even though he knows I'm a mess. Obviously, I have something going on that those other people don't.

Then I read things like this, from Psalm 106:8: "Yet he saved them for his name’s sake,

to make his mighty power known."

The Psalmist is writing about Israel, about how God didn't forget them the way they forgot him. But the truth revealed here is true about me too. God saved me, the single greatest blessing in my life and yet the one I so quickly overlook. He saved me not because I deserve it, not because I'm special. He saved me for the same reasons he saved Israel.

When I start looking down my nose at someone else, someone whose life choices seem certain to lead to bad things, I need to remember that there, but for the grace of God, go I. There's nothing special about me, nothing that makes me any different from them, except Jesus grabbed me by my sinful soul and won't let me go.

For his name's sake.