God's Not Fair

One doesn’t have to look far to see evidence that life is unfair. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. The wicked prosper while the righteous struggle. The evil go free while the innocent suffer. The scale of right and wrong has been turned on its head and injustice seems to reign. Life is unfair, but more than that is seems as if God is unfair, too.

We have all experienced unfairness. We have suffered as a result of someone else’s sin. We have experienced hardship that we didn’t deserve, that was not the result of any of our actions. We work hard and don’t receive what is due. We do good and instead of being praised we are ridiculed. It just isn’t fair!

Romans 3:9-10 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; as it is written,

“There is none righteous, not even one;”…

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

The problem with this viewpoint is that it operates under the assumption that we deserve better. We think that we deserve good and not bad, unfortunately that just isn’t true. We all deserve punishment. Not only do we deserve the bad, but we deserve more bad and less good than we receive.

            Romans 6:23a New American Standard Bible (NASB)

            For the wages of sin is death,

Not only do we deserve physical death, but we also deserve spiritual death and eternal separation from God. Just one sin warrants this sentence and we have all committed many. We are all guilty of repeated spiritual treason. Nothing we do is good enough to deserve any blessing. So really, when bad things happen, even if it’s not a result of our actions, it is no more than we deserve. There is none truly innocent when compared with the holiness of God. The only person who suffered and truly did not deserve it was Jesus.

            Romans 5:6-8 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

God is not fair. His own Son suffered the consequences of our sin and died to pay our debt. It’s not fair. He did not deserve to suffer and we do not deserve to be forgiven. It’s not fair. We deserve to be punished, He deserved to be blessed and praised. And yet God loved us so much that He was willing for the just to die for the unjust so that we have the opportunity to live in eternity with Him.

            Ephesians 2:3-8 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.

That is the thing about grace; if we deserved it, it wouldn’t be grace. The very thing that makes it grace is the fact that we don’t deserve it. It is a gift. God is not fair. He gives us so much more good than we deserve. He blesses us with so many gifts when we deserve punishment.

When life seems unfair, choose to remember the greater unfairness; that your Perfect Savior died to pay for your sins so that you could have His blessings. Remember that you get so much more good in your life than you deserve. Thank God for the great unfairness with which He has blessed you!


I will be travelling all week, and so will not be posting normally.