That’s not fair!

 That’s Not Fair!

 

When God our Saviour revealed his kindness and love, he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.

TITUS 3.4-5

Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins.

PSALM 51.1

God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realise that they, too, can believe in him and receive eternal life.

1 TIMOTHY 1.16

 

We live in a world that teaches us, “The early bird gets the worm,” “No pain, no gain,” “There is no such thing as a free lunch,” and “You get what you pay for.” We buy the idea that people get what they deserve, at least in theory. Whenever we experience hardship or difficulty, we quickly say, “I don’t deserve this!” Believing we have a right to fairness, we feel violated when we think we haven’t gotten what we deserve.

On the surface, a perfectly fair world appeals to us. But would we really want to live in such a world? In a completely fair world, there is no room for grace — receiving what you don’t deserve. There would be no room for mercy either — being spared from getting the punishment you do deserve. We deserve punishment but receive forgiveness, we deserve judgment but experience love, we deserve death but get showered with God’s mercy.

Since we live in a world where we don’t always get what we deserve and where we sometimes get what we don’t deserve, we will experience loss. But this also means we can receive mercy. Ultimately it is not “fairness” we want from God. If he gave us what is fair — what we really deserve — we would have to pay for our sins. What we really want from God is justice (doing what is right) and mercy (not giving us the punishment we’ve earned). And we can be confident that his abundant mercy will keep us from getting what we really deserve.