What do you deserve?
Do you know someone that has what they don't deserve? Or someone that deserves more than what they have?
On what do you base these things?
If a person has much wealth and donates much of it to people not as well off as them, do they deserve good things to happen to them? Do they deserve to have no one close to them die because of what they do for others?
If a person is poor and living on the streets, but gives everything they have daily for the people that need, do they deserve to have a good income and own possessions?
Recently, as well as several times before, I have sat through a sermon at a church where the Pastor says something along the lines of "salvation, though we don't deserve it."
I have a problem with the word deserve.
The problem with deserve is twofold. First, it is rather subjective. What I feel someone does or does not deserve may be different than what you think. I see a rich man that owns boats, cars, houses, and businesses and say, "he doesn't deserve all that." However, you see the same man traveling 20 weeks a year on mission trips and giving much of his income to needy people and say, "he deserves for his business to prosper."
It is the same when we apply it to ourselves. Do you really think that EVERY person around you thinks that you deserve the same things YOU think you deserve? Your family? Your coworker? What about the 13 year old child in Africa that has not slept in a building or eaten a meal in days?
The second problem with deserve is much more important. Think of any time you have ever thought about what someone does or does not deserve. Think about what you base that opinion on every single time. What did that person do to make you think that?.............
There it is.........What did that person DO......
Deserve, for us, revolves around works and deeds.
In the movie, Unforgiven, Clint Eastwood's character, William Munny, does a lot of bad things throughout his life. He feels bad for those things, and years later, after his wife dies, he feels he didn't deserve the good life he was able to live with her.
Later, in retribution for the beating and killing of his friend, he holds a gun to the face of the man responsible. As Little Bill is lying on his back, scared and angry, he tells him, "I don"t deserve this. To die like this." Munny looks down the barrel at him and says,
"Deserves got nothin' to do with it."
If I gave you a list with a bunch of names on it, could you tell me who deserves to be happy; to be rich; to be poor; to be alone? You don't know whether the name represents a child, an adult, what kind of clothes they wear, where they live, what religion they are-you don't know anything about them. What do they deserve?
We are so stuck on worldly things.
God is not bound by our feeble boundaries. He gives GRACE freely. And GRACE outweighs DESERVES. He takes that same list of people and invites them to Him for eternity. And He knows EVERYTHING about them. Their thoughts, fears, indiscretions, doubts, and mistakes.
Does that mean God thinks we deserve Heaven? I can't/won't opine on what God "thinks." But, suppose He has a different idea of "deserves."
He tells us "I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture." John 10:9
" Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." John 6:35
He gives us His grace freely, Jesus died for ALL to be forgiven of their sins, He tells us that we need to accept Christ and we will be with him for all eternity.
There are no promises for a stress-free life, to be rich on Earth, to not be afflicted with disease or sickness; The only thing He promises is eternal life.
"Deserves got nothin' to do with it."
