deserving nothing, worth everything

I found myself thinking this week about the distinction between what we deserve and what God says we're worth. When I see bad things happening to good people or good things happening to bad people, my gut says, "They don't deserve that!" But really, we don't deserve anything more or less than death. God owes us nothing. Our natural rebellion against him warrants death, and anything better is more than we deserve.

However, although we deserve nothing, God proclaimed through the cross that we are worth everything. This is the beauty of the grace of God; our sin warrants death, but his death gives us life! So although we don't deserve his love, God says we are worth loving.

I associate deserving with entitlement and worth with security. When we think we do or don't deserve our circumstances, we're looking at our lives through a lens of entitlement. Sometimes we may feel like God owes us something, but truly, we owe him more than we could ever repay. On the other hand, when we understand that God's display of love in sacrificing his son ultimately defines our worth, we can be secure in our identity as children of God. We live freely and gratefully because we know that God's gift of himself to us is greater than anything we could ever earn or deserve. We know that in all circumstances, God is good. On our good days and bad days, he loves us. He considers us worthy of his perfect and never-failing love.

Therefore, although you deserve nothing more than death, God considers you worth loving, worth dying for. If that doesn't make you want to stand up a little taller, I don't know what will. Child of God, your creator gave his son to die for you so that you could live forever with him. He says you're worthy of love, and he invites you to live daily in his perfect love.

So whatever your external circumstances, whether you feel you deserve whatever you're facing, remember that you are worthy of love. The God who made everything made you and values you. He owes you nothing but gave you everything.

He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

Psalm 103:10-12

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2:1-7