Have you ever watched a child open a stack of gifts? Seeing their eyes dance and minds race over the latest new thing in their hands? Grace upon grace…and as such…all of it undeserved. At times though, even amid such undeserved blessing, there can be a shift of attention to something that did not occur. “Thanks for the sweater Grandma…I like blue, but I really wanted green.” Some will raise an eyebrow at the apparent ingratitude of the child. And that’s true, of course. But if we dig at the source of the attitude, we find an all-too-common problem…the problem of comparison.
This is true, even if more subtle, at all stages of life. “Thank God I heard the gospel, but I wish I had heard it sooner.” Or, “God has blessed me but Johnny is truly getting a double portion!” We can get trapped in comparing what we have by grace with what someone else has by the same grace.
Jesus taught on this in one of my favorite parables in Matthew 20. Day workers received their wages at the end of the day, and everyone got precisely what was promised. There was jealousy however because some worked longer for the same wages. The story’s point was not a need for wage equity but that the employer had absolute freedom to hire who he wanted and to pay what he wished. The employees were not entitled to a job in the first place; how can they now claim injustice because the employer showed different grace toward others?
What we deserve based on our rebellion against God is to be cast eternally from His presence, banished from His Kingdom, and the wrath of judgment against us for one single act of rebellion against Him. (Romans 6:23). What we receive as believers…is forgiveness. We are drawn near, welcomed into the Kingdom, and our due judgment was taken on by the King Himself.
10For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 11And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
Romans 5:10-11, NASB95
We deserved banishment and received a welcome. We deserved death and received life. We deserved an ending but inherited a new beginning. Real joy emanates from right perspective. Let’s turn our eyes heavenward and see the high cost of our salvation (What we do not deserve) and the wrath (what we do deserve) that the Son of God endured in our place. Then, we will have the right perspective, and only then can we truly exult in the God who saves.
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