When you contract for a job you expect to get what you deserve. A lot of life revolves around that principle. What happens when you get what you don’t deserve?
Jesus tells a parable about a group of workers that all get paid a denarius – which was a day’s wages at the time. Some started early in the day, and worked all day. Others came at different times throughout the day – including for the last hour. Every one of them got a denarius. The people who had worked all day felt it was not fair – they should have gotten more! The Bible doesn’t say how those who only worked one hour felt. The owner of the vineyard where they all worked, made his feelings on the matter clear though! “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?”
Do we ever “begrudge” God’s generosity? I know we do sometimes as we look at we have compared to what other people have. A truly content person is hard to find. And it’s not always about money or material possessions. Sometimes it’s someone’s spouse, their happiness, or their relationship with their children. Sometimes it’s their relationship with God, how they worship, or other spiritual behaviors. There is a much larger scale to this issue, though. The truth is none of us deserves any good thing from God’s hand. Yet, out of his fatherly, divine goodness and mercy he pours out blessing upon blessing on us. The ultimate of those blessings was giving his Son to die for us.
When we look at the cross, we see what we deserved. Romans 6:23 says that the wages of sin is death. What we deserve to be paid is death and eternal separation from God. We also see that Jesus loved us so much that he took what we deserved and gave us something different. Forgiveness. Life. Salvation.
While we’re busy thinking about being first, or being the most important, Jesus comes and takes the place of being last. He tells the disciples, “We are going to Jerusalem.” He has the cross in mind. He knows why he is going: to die and rise for us.
Even James and John, who were standing there with him, got caught up in the desire to have greater honor – a type of payment for service.
What would happen if we saw everything as a gift from God’s hand?
I was at camp with the some of the confirmation students this weekend, and I overheard and argument between a mother and child. I don’t know what the kid was doing, but the mother looked at him and said, “I did not have to send you here. I did not need to spend $130 just so that you can have a good time. So cut the attitude.”
I wonder sometimes if we think – maybe subconsciously – that we deserve the good things our Father in heaven gives, and we don’t deserve the more difficult things he blesses us with.
God will not lay a guilt trip on us like this mom did to her child. He lovingly keeps on blessing us and is patient with us. But what if we looked at our attitude toward our lives and our blessings and recognized that we don’t deserve any of the good things God gives, but he loves us so much that he gives them to us anyway?
That is really the heart of our relationship with our Father: HE loves US. And because he loves we have every good blessing in Jesus.
Father, thank you for loving me even when I’m not very lovable. I don’t always respond to that love as I should, and I’m not always grateful for your blessings. Help me to begin to understand how blessed I am. Help me to see how much you do for me. Help me to know how amazing your forgiveness is. And let me live differently because of it. Amen.
Jesus tells a parable about a group of workers that all get paid a denarius – which was a day’s wages at the time. Some started early in the day, and worked all day. Others came at different times throughout the day – including for the last hour. Every one of them got a denarius. The people who had worked all day felt it was not fair – they should have gotten more! The Bible doesn’t say how those who only worked one hour felt. The owner of the vineyard where they all worked, made his feelings on the matter clear though! “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?”
Do we ever “begrudge” God’s generosity? I know we do sometimes as we look at we have compared to what other people have. A truly content person is hard to find. And it’s not always about money or material possessions. Sometimes it’s someone’s spouse, their happiness, or their relationship with their children. Sometimes it’s their relationship with God, how they worship, or other spiritual behaviors. There is a much larger scale to this issue, though. The truth is none of us deserves any good thing from God’s hand. Yet, out of his fatherly, divine goodness and mercy he pours out blessing upon blessing on us. The ultimate of those blessings was giving his Son to die for us.
When we look at the cross, we see what we deserved. Romans 6:23 says that the wages of sin is death. What we deserve to be paid is death and eternal separation from God. We also see that Jesus loved us so much that he took what we deserved and gave us something different. Forgiveness. Life. Salvation.
While we’re busy thinking about being first, or being the most important, Jesus comes and takes the place of being last. He tells the disciples, “We are going to Jerusalem.” He has the cross in mind. He knows why he is going: to die and rise for us.
Even James and John, who were standing there with him, got caught up in the desire to have greater honor – a type of payment for service.
What would happen if we saw everything as a gift from God’s hand?
I was at camp with the some of the confirmation students this weekend, and I overheard and argument between a mother and child. I don’t know what the kid was doing, but the mother looked at him and said, “I did not have to send you here. I did not need to spend $130 just so that you can have a good time. So cut the attitude.”
I wonder sometimes if we think – maybe subconsciously – that we deserve the good things our Father in heaven gives, and we don’t deserve the more difficult things he blesses us with.
God will not lay a guilt trip on us like this mom did to her child. He lovingly keeps on blessing us and is patient with us. But what if we looked at our attitude toward our lives and our blessings and recognized that we don’t deserve any of the good things God gives, but he loves us so much that he gives them to us anyway?
That is really the heart of our relationship with our Father: HE loves US. And because he loves we have every good blessing in Jesus.
Father, thank you for loving me even when I’m not very lovable. I don’t always respond to that love as I should, and I’m not always grateful for your blessings. Help me to begin to understand how blessed I am. Help me to see how much you do for me. Help me to know how amazing your forgiveness is. And let me live differently because of it. Amen.
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