I am taking a course through Ligonier Connect called Understanding God's Sovereignty in Suffering. It has been an amazing course so far, and we came to a lesson called "Better Than I Deserve." After watching the lesson's video we are asked to answer a question or two about what we learned.
The first question that was listed was the one that I answered, and I thought it might be helpful to post my answer.
What do you really deserve?
In what ways has God given you things that you do not deserve? Conversely, how has He not given you things that you do deserve?
It is not that God owes me nothing. God owes me something: death. If we say that God owes me nothing it is secretly saying that our standing before God is neither justified or condemned. We are not in this foggy, middle ground of goodness and badness. We deserve death because the wage of sin is death. Our intentional and purposeful sin has separated us from God, but God made a way through Jesus so that what we deserve was taken and nailed to the cross. God has given His children grace, which is undeserved and unmerited by its very definition. We do not deserve a right and justified relationship with the perfect, loving, and holy Father of the universes.
What I do not deserve is grace. What I do not deserve is to be justified. What I do not deserve is to be seen as blameless, sinless, and forgiven. But, Jesus has given us this in His sinless life, His voluntary and atoning death, and His triumph over the grave.
We all deserve death, but Jesus sacrificially took our penalty through His death on the cross. We all do not deserve grace and forgiveness, but Jesus gives that to those who trust that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
God is so good to us. God is so gracious to us.
Jacob Luis Gonzales
No comments:
Post a Comment