It's funny how we believe we are entitled to so much. "If I do this or that for you God, then don't I "deserve" what I want?" There are plenty of voices in many pulpits that will reinforce this notion that we are entitled and that we can place God in our debt. Your Blessed Life Now or The Blessed Life are just a couple of popular titles that will in subtle and not so subtle ways convince you that you deserve better. The message that God is for you and that God is here for you is deafening and overwhelming. As if God is not the center of the universe, you are. But we don't have to go any further than our own wicked deceitful hearts to hear that message.
Isn't it true, every moment of every day we tell ourselves we should have it better? We should have more. We deserve more. We don't deserve to be treated this way or that someone or something is keeping us from happiness. If we have any church background at all, at some point, the Steve Johnson thought comes into our heads and we say, "Look at all I have done for You, don't I deserve better?"
When I think about the tantrums that I have thrown so many times it makes me sick. What's worse, I really believed it. God in His mercy opened my eyes to the obvious truth, we don't deserve anything from God but His wrath. The reality that Steve Johnson can run and breath and jump is a miracle and only by God's grace do we have any ability at all.
Paul, in Ephesians 2, says it best, "All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved."
Clearly, Paul is not speaking to everyone but only to those who have been made alive by God. And that is Paul's point. It wasn't anything that we did or could do or bring. We have nothing and deserve nothing but His wrath and if He doesn't intervene we are lost. It is only by His grace. With this correct perspective like Job we should say, "though He slay me yet will I trust Him". He may crush me in this life and He may choose to bless me. I may catch the touchdown pass and I may not, but whatever comes my way He knows what is best for me and without Him I would be nothing. Paul goes on to say why He saved us in the first place. And it isn't for us or so we could enjoy a "Blessed Life", on this earth, but rather, "that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace". That's right, it is for His glory. Period, end of story. Not my story and glory. Not yours either. His. To Him be all glory, honor, dominon, power, and strength, forever and ever Amen.
