Sometimes when people ask how I'm doing, I reply, "Better than I deserve". I remember a well-meaning person responding, "Oh no, Joe, you deserve a lot", to which I replied, "Not really". I was thinking about what I truly deserve - God's judgment. We easily forget how sinful we are at the core of our being. Thinking of ourselves more highly than we should diminish our sense of deep indebtedness to God for His grace. It discounts the price He paid to rescue us.
Time for a reality check! As the psalmist reminds us, God "has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities" (Ps. 103:10). Considering who we are in light of a holy and just God, the only thing we truly deserve is hell. And heaven is an absolute impossibility - except for the gift of Christ's sacrifice on the cross. If God never does anything more than redeem us, He has already done far more than we deserve. No wonder the psalmist says, "As the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him" (v. 11).
Knowing ourselves for what we are, we can't help but say, "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound!" He gives us so much more than we deserve. If God never does anything more than redeem us, He has already done far more than we deserve.
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