What We Deserve

In the past few months I've heard a lot of, "You/We/I deserve everything 'good' in life." I can't say that I agree. The other day a friend of mine posted this on her facebook page, "The pain, suffering, and turmoil that we go through is nothing compared to what HE did for us on The Cross...But it is still hard to handle and understand sometimes..." A completely understandable and relatable statement. We all go through hard times, we all have times when we don't understand what God is doing and why we need to go through what we are going through. In comment, I wrote, "We must remember that we deserve nothing good in this life, despite the world telling us quite the opposite." And I really believe that. We DON'T deserve anything good in this life. God tells us our righteousness is like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). He tells us that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23) and that all have sinned (Romans 3:23). To me, that means I don't deserve anything good, it means I DESERVE death. It is only through the grace and mercy of God that that is not what I get. I get life because of Christ. Because HE took MY place on the cross. Because HE took MY punishment, what I deserve, upon HIMSELF. He is the only man who ever walked this earth and didn't sin. He is the only one that didn't deserve death, and yet He chose it for Himself, for ME and YOU so that we might have life.

While we have life, because of Christ, there are still consequences here on earth from our sin and the sin of those around us. Because we live in a fallen world, bad things happen. Things that we don't like, things that we don't understand. It's not because God doesn't care, but because of our sinfulness. Because it's what we deserve, what we've earned. Yet, God in His glorious mercy doesn't even end it there, Romans 8:28 promises us that God will work out all things for good for those that love Him. Even those things that we don't like, or don't understand, He's willing to use to help us to grow closer to Him, to work them out for good. Hallelujah!