A Right Standing with God

A deeper look at Deuteronomy 9:4 and it might begin to look scary. "After the Lord your God has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself 'the Lord has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness'. No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is going to drive them out before you." Deut 9:4 (NIV). That was Moses warning the Israelites not to think they could possess the promised land because of their righteousness. He told the Israelites in verse 6 that they were in fact a stiff-necked people.

This implies that miracles don't mean a right standing with God. God would help Israel conquer the promised land and its not because Israel was righteous - as a matter of fact, the israelites wwere obstinate. The amount of miracles aman performs does not tell how righteous he is.

After Peter and John had just healed the cripple at the beautiful gate in Acts 3, Peter asked the surprised on-lookers "why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?" (Acts 3:12). So the man got healed and it wasn't because of Peter or John's righteousness.

My point? Miracles don't mean a right standing with God

The gifts and promises of God

It amazes me that we try to 'deserve' God's gifts and promises we try to earn them. God gives us something good, something wonderful - something that dazes us. Because these things are too good for us we then try to deserve them.
The Bible says that our righteousness are like filthy rags. It doesn't matter how much we try to be righteous, its not our righteousness that earns us God's love, gifts, and promises (in fact, our righteousness is of God i.e.God gives us the power to live right!).
Its like a friend buys us a birthday gift and then we hand him/her a piece of rag "here, take this, for the gift you bought me". When God gives us anything He's not giving us those things so we can pay Him back. He's not "using what He has to get what He wants" cos actualy He owns everything. What God wants is our appreciation and gratitude. Our heartfelt 'thank you' for everything He has done.
sometimes God makes us a promise and we make the mistake of thinking "if I don't give God this or that, He might change His mind". No, no, no!He will not change His mind. There is nothing we can give Him to make Him not want to change His mind.