"You Deserve It"

But what exactly do you deserve?

There’s a phrase that gets used every day and we don’t really pay that much attention to it because it’s so common.  We tell each other “You should get that new purse/iphone/gaming system.  You deserve it.”  We tell ourselves “Eat that dessert” or “Take that vacation” because you deserve it.  I get it.  We work hard, we make sacrifices in our lives, and sometimes we just want to play or splurge or let loose.  We deserve it.  We’ve earned it.

Or we go in the other direction and say things like “Quit that job/Leave that relationship because you don’t deserve that.”  We know our worth and we draw the line at how we’ll be treated.  We won’t tolerate anymore because we deserve better.

Deserve is defined as “being worthy of, or have a right to something.”  We see it as a positive word.  Especially as having a right to something.  Our Declaration of Independence rings in our ears of the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  We have rights as citizens of our country.  We have rights as tenants or homeowners.  We have rights as employees.  We love our rights and we love getting what we deserve with those rights.

But I get stuck on that word deserve.  I roll it around in my mouth and my mind and my heart and I don’t like how it tastes and feels.  The Spirit in me took me to passage after passage about what God thinks of what we deserve.

“The Lord looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. All have turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.”  Psalm 14:2-3

“As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” Romans 3:10-12

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  Romans 3:23

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Romans 6:23

“He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.”  Psalm 103:10

“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 person, though for a good person 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

“If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Romans 10:9

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.”  Ephesians 2:8

These verse show time and time again that humanity as a whole and humans as individuals have no desire toward God. That our sin nature is in conflict with God’s design and holiness.  That the wages – the earned payment for our actions, what we deserve because of our sin – is death.

And yet! God has such love for each of us that He “does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.”  He created a way through Jesus’ death on the cross to freely gift us reconciliation with Him.

Grace – the method by which God loves us to give us what we do not deserve

Mercy – the method by which God loves us to not give us what we do deserve

There are many, many things I deserve…and none of them are good. 

I deserve to be judged.                                2 Corinthians 5:10

I deserve to be forsaken.                           Hebrews 13:5

I deserve to be punished.                          1 John 4:17-18

I deserve to be put to death.                      Romans 6:23

I deserve to be eternally separated from God. Revelation 21:27

I witnessed a father getting to the bottom of his two children arguing.  The little boy had hit his sister.  The father asked the daughter what she had done to make her brother hit her.  She said that she was telling him something several times because he wasn’t paying attention to her.  The brother got tired of hearing her and hit her.  And the father said…to the daughter…“you got what you deserved.”

I was upset for weeks over that conversation.  It was wrong in so many ways.  The father taught the son he could hit his sister (and women in general).  The daughter learned her voice got her hit.  And the father taught both of his children that they deserve different things:  the son deserves to be left alone and the daughter deserves to be silenced and abused.

Do you see the damage being done by thinking we deserve things??? As believers, we must make peace with the grace bestowed upon us through Jesus’ and His forgiveness and stop using biblical punishment language to describe worldly rewards.  Of course we want to partake in some fun and frivolous activities and choices after hard work or hard sacrifices.  But the words matter. We deserve none of it. Glory to the Father, He has spared us from what we deserve and has lavished his mercy and grace upon us so that we can live better, speak better, and teach better. 

So let’s do better.