What God Owes Us

Peace Family, what does God owe us?

A good friend was recently talking with me about the Bible’s teachings regarding a specific sin. She said that kosher laws were practical for their time period, because God was protecting his people through the restrictions (for example, the prohibition of eating pork, which would have been difficult to cook correctly to remove parasites at that time period, would have kept the Israelites healthy) but on the other hand, she argued that the specific sin she was addressing doesn’t harm anyone, including the person committing the sin. Because she does not see a practical reason for God to forbid it, she judges that it could not be a sin, that we are misreading the Bible, that when God forbade it several times in the Bible, it could not really be applicable because other rules are not applicable (such as kosher law), and he was not as explicit as she feels that he should have been.

Peace family, do you ever struggle with these kinds of issues? Why does God just want to ruin our happiness or make us miss out on good things? Because he is good, shouldn’t he want us to do whatever we think will make us happy? Does God have the right to give us rules for which we don’t see any practical reasons?

Peace family, those beliefs show a false perspective of God, his character, and what goodness truly is. Likewise, as far as rules go, I have found that pretty much all of God’s rules are designed to draw us closer to him, or to protect us from something bad. Peace family, this is what it boils down to: does God owe us an explanation? Absolutely not! He’s God, and we are not.

I always prefer an explanation, and I prefer to see reasons why I might have to suffer or experience pain, but with some things in life, we will never get an explanation. Everyone has painful things in their lives that they don’t understand. We have to be able to trust in the goodness of God, and his love and care for us, despite how things look or feel. If I wake up tomorrow, and I had a stroke or an aneurysm during the night that leaves me paralyzed for the rest of my life, I won’t enjoy it, but God is still God. He created the universe, and he owes me no explanation.

What does God owe us? Nothing.

Some of these are hard to swallow, but they are still true: God does not owe us financial stability. He does not owe us an easy life. He does not owe us a faithful spouse, even if we have kept ourselves pure. He does not owe us Christian children, even if we did our best to raise them in a way that honors him. He does not owe us a good relationship with our parents, siblings, or other family members. He does not owe us good health, or healthiness in our families. He does not owe us children at all, or for us to have long lives. He does not owe us an enthralling, emotional spiritual experience, or to really experience falling in love.

God does love to bless us, but he doesn’t owe us any of these things. Is there anything that you have been believing (even if unintentionally,) that God owes you?

Peace family, let’s not become ungrateful and distrustful of God. It is the devil who tells us that God owes us something, including answers, when in fact, we owe God everything. He has given us every good thing, and we can thank him for it. We owe him our loyalty, our trust, our thankfulness, our praise, our love, our obedience, our finances, our talents, our futures, and more. How often do we really give him all that he deserves?

Let’s you and me both examine our hearts today, allow them to be softened, and consider what areas and questions we need to hand over to God. As we approach Easter, let’s really think about all that our amazing God has really done for us.