What do I deserve?

I work hard I deserve to drive an expensive car.
I spend 45+ hours at work each week, I deserve to have dinner on the table when I get home.
I went to college for 5 years, obtained a difficult degree, I deserve some respect.
I deserve to have this car lane, how dare someone cut me off.
I, I, I.

Let’s talk about what I really desrve.

A Christian understands at the fundamental level, what we deserve. I say that because a Christian will understand that any individual "deserves" the wrath of God. If we solely look at our own merits we realize that we are evil in nature and fall well short of the glory of God. The Bible says "There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one." Romans 3:10-12 and "For the wages of sin is death." Romans 6:23.
Oh, but what a sad story (or life) that would be if it finished there! That's the thing, we just have to start there... Because without the sad news and bad news there would be no Good News. The Good News is this: Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, came to the earth and actually lived a life with out fault. Therefore he is the only one who actually deserved anything good from his merits. But what happened to him? He was crucified. The only one to ever walk this earth who was without fault, was put to death in the most excruciating, horrible, painful way you can imagine. He payed the "wages of sin" without deserving it.
He was laid in the ground for 3 days, but by the power of Spirit of God, he rose from the dead conquering Death.
So what does that do for us? I didn't give the last half of Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Eternal life is the opposite of death, so what Jesus did for those who believe in him, is he took the death and wrath from God that our merit deserves and he took that upon himself on the Cross. When he did that those who believe became justified before God. Jesus took the sins of believers on himself, and gave them his righteousness.
So now we still deserve God's wrath, but Jesus has taken what we deserve! He paid our debts, so now we don't have to pay the debt of death, insted we are given the gift of eternal life!

Rom 5:8
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Rom 5:9
Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath {of God} through Him.
Rom 5:10
For 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.

What an amazing story it is! And YOU can have that same gift of eternal life.

Rom 10:8
But what does it say? "THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART"--that is, the word of faith which we are preaching,
Rom 10:9
that if you confess with your mouth Jesus {as} Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;
Rom 10:10
for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

Confessing Jesus as Lord of your life, and forsaking all else is our part in being declared righteous before God.
I have experienced this truth in my own life and I deeply desire that you would put your faith in Jesus (trust him) to save you from the wrath of God which we all deserve.

For further explanation this is a good, well written article regarding this subject.

The Entitlement Generation

I don't know about you, but I have heard the phrase, "The Entitlement Generation" thrown around to describe this up and coming generation. By the name I speculate that the idea behind it is that this generation seems to think that something is owed to them by the world. The reasons why a person thinks they deserve certain things vary I'm sure. In my previous post, I mention one incident I saw on tv that really started me down this thought process of "deserving". (for more info on the "entitlement generation" here is a decent news article.)

Honestly, I don't think this is a new concept. The phrase, "he received his just desserts" has been around for quite some time. Which makes me think it goes deeper than the particular way the last of the baby boomers have raised their children. Not that parents cannot have positive or negative effects on their children, but I do see selfishness for what it is and would entertain that selfishness may just look different in each generation.

I think I'm going to use the next couple posts and share my thoughts on what is deserved and that which is undeserved.

The first two will probably be about "What we deserve from God" and "What other people deserve from us."

Not living for ourselves

Some background to the title of this blog:

The other night my wife and I were sitting watching TV... (I know it's sad, we should have been out enjoying the weather) watching "Deal or No Deal". The game show where the contestant picks one of 26 cases each with a dollar amount between a penny and a million dollars. The process whittles down to find out how much money is in the contestants case, every so often the 'banker' calls and gives them an offer to buy the case, for less than what could be in the case.

Essentially its a game of odds, some people get lucky others don't. It is remarkable how many people really believe that the biggest amount is in their case and act towards that end.

So getting to the point, when we were watching a lady was down to about 4 cases. There was one big number like 400k and several smaller ones, she had one case to open before her next offer from the banker. And her friend who was helping make the decisions, said..."Go for it, you deserve more than they are offering." I was dumbfounded, not only does playing the odds have absolutely nothing to do with what we "deserve" but this lady really thought that "fate" or something would grant her more money, because she had suffered or something in this life.

Multiple topical conversations could be brought out here. 1) issues with the "entitlement generation" 2) what do we really deserve 3) how to actually play to get the best odds... etc.

But the point I'd like to make is that we ought to not live for ourselves. That lady on the show was living for herself, and thinking, "what do I deserve?" I'll delve further into what we really deserve later. But for now let's think about how we can live our lives to serve others, rather than ourselves. This is difficult and it takes sacrificing our own desires. But in the end when we are laying on our death bed would you rather be taking everything you did in life to the grave with you(Like someone who selfishly does everything for themself)? Or would you rather be leaving a legacy of love and service to the people in your life.

Here's a sermon from John Piper on the topic (obviously I like this guy).

Don't Waste Your Life.