UNEXPECTED (October 20, 2023)

“I don’t deserve this.”

It’s a sentiment uttered—muttered—millions of times a day around the world. Our deep, unyielding sense of justice is aroused each time we aren’t treated fairly by a spouse or colleague, when we get unexpected charges from the tax office, when we think that God or fate has given us more than we can bear. Deep in our souls, we desperately want life to be fair.

But it’s also a line heard millions of times each day by men and women marveling at the offer of the gospel. And whether we’re correct or not to sometimes protest our bad treatment or unlucky turns, we’re always accurate to say in the presence of God’s amazing grace, “I don’t deserve this.”

“God is so rich in mercy, and He loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, He gave us life when He raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)” (Ephesians 2:4-5).

Grace never ceases to amaze—just because it flows from a God of justice who ordained that Jesus would bear the penalty for our sins and die for us. That gift offers us a future we never could have earned—living with Him forever.

Say the line you know is true, with all the hope it holds for you: “I don’t deserve this.”

And stay in grace. -Bill Knott