Has anyone every told you that you didn’t deserve something? If so how did it make you feel? Before we take this thought any further let me just state that there are a lot of things we don’t deserve. We live in a very entitled society which has kept people from the process of maturity. I am a big believer in hard work and learning to be responsible. Regardless of how you see God, a universal principle that needs to be understood is that your life will reap what you sow.

These are lessons I’m currently teaching my kids because I love them and because I want them to contribute positively to society and make a difference in this world. If you want good grades, you need to study. If you want to master something you need to devote the proper about of time and energy. If you want nice things you need to take care of what you currently possess. If you want to have special privileges you need to show yourself responsible and trustworthy. So often we treat our jobs and positions, relationships and possessions as rights rather than privileges.

Trust isn’t given. Trust is earned. The same holds true with respect and reputation. You don’t deserve it, until you earn it because its conditional upon our actions. On occasion I’ve had to correct my children about lying. A punishment is always more severe when a lie is involved because we cherish honesty. Honesty is what enables relationships to function. Dishonesty causes distrust which overtime creates distance within relationships. Trust is easily lost and not easily gained which is why honesty is always the best policy.

The ending of any correction I bring to my children is always the same. Yes, they need to earn trust but what they can never earn is my love. In fact, no matter what they do, I will never love them any less. No matter the crime, betrayal or offense, I will never stop loving my kids because my love for them isn’t conditional upon their actions. A love that is centered around a person’s actions is not love but approval. Love does not work this way. My kids cannot earn my love. They are my kids so regardless of what they do they will always be deserving of my love. Love isn’t based on merit because of action. The fact that they exist as my children instantly qualifies them as deserving of love.

What would you do if your child approached you on a daily basis to communicate that he/she was undeserving of your love? If it was me, I would scoop my child up in my arms, hug them for a long while and tell them how ridiculous that belief is. Then I would probably go to my room to cry and beat myself up for ever giving my child that impression. How would you feel if your child communicated this to you every time they interacted with you? “Mom… Dad… thank you for loving someone as horrible as I am. I’m so undeserving of your love.” We would never expect our children to approach us this way? Its a frightening thought. But isn’t this the same way we approach God?

A new song that is very popular in churches today gets everyone singing about how powerful and reckless God’s love is towards us. We actually sang it at my church a few weeks ago. The imagery is great, revealing how God wouldn’t allow anything to get in the way of his love for us. But then I came across a lyric about God’s love I didn’t agree with. The lyric went, “I couldn’t earn it. I don’t deserve it.” I understand that I cannot earn the Father’s love. Love isn’t based on merit, so of course I can’t earn it. But I stood their questioning whether or not I deserve God’s love.

In all honesty, I struggle with this type of thinking. In the New Testament the Apostle Paul lays out that we have received a spirit of adoption as children of God (Romans 8:12-17; Galatians 4:1-7). Paul writes in Ephesians 3:17b – 18 “…that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” John makes it clear, “that we are God’s children now,” (1 John 3:2). Why would the Holy Spirit impress upon the hearts of so many authors of the Bible to articulate the love of God if we had to receive God’s love in a conditional way? It would be as if God were saying, “I want you all to know how much I love you, but keep in mind that you don’t deserve it.” Is that how God desires for us to live our lives? If he truly desires for us to live our lives with an understanding of how undeserving we are of his love, then the focus of our lives should not be upon the unconditional love of God but rather upon our own condition. 

A focus upon our own condition has major problems. The moment you start focusing upon our own condition you eliminate the power of the resurrection. We are a new creation in Christ. We are not just people of the cross. We are people of both the cross and the resurrection. Death and New Beginnings go hand in hand. I guess people could then argue that it was while we were in our old nature that we were undeserving. If that were true you would still need to grab a hold of the reality that that is no longer true because we are now people of the resurrection with a new identity in Christ. Not that we are perfect, but that in this life we are learning how to operate in this new identity that we have through Jesus. However, it was while we were yet sinners that Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). The unconditional love of God for humanity existed before both the cross and resurrection.

One of the major reasons why Christ came was to make the old covenant obsolete (Hebrews 8:13). The old covenant of Moses was entirely focused upon our own merit. Its a covenant that doesn’t truly represent the heart of God because its foundation is based in approval, not love.  Romans 3:20 states, “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”  God doesn’t want us to live focused on sin. He doesn’t desire us to believe we are undeserving, because he isn’t after behavioral modification. God is after heart transformation. When we begin to know the Father’s love for us, we take on a conquering type of identity. “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). You can’t feel empowered by God’s love if you believe you are undeserving of it. Throughout the scriptures we discover how lives are transformed as we come to grasp the value and love that God places upon us.

An undeserving understanding of ourselves is what the Prodigal Son from Luke 15 possessed.  He returned home to his Father believing he was so unworthy to be called His son because of his mistakes. Once again, a love that is based on merit, is not love at all. The way I read it, the Father had to break that “undeserving mindset.” He had to get His son to stop focusing and identifying with his mistakes and to start focusing and identifying with the Father’s love. He couldn’t see himself as a son of the Father so he started believing he could be a servant instead. The church has this knack for welcoming prodigals home and then turning them into the older son character from Luke 15. We welcome them home with God’s love and then we tell them they don’t deserve God’s love.  So they end up acting like servants of God, where they strive and work to earn love, rather than children of God who know they are loved by the Father. The lyrics to that song we sang at church a few weeks ago stated, “I couldn’t earn it,” but when you live believing you don’t deserve it you focus so much upon yourself you can’t help by try and earn it.

Singing and believing, “I don’t deserve it,” takes the focus away from God and His love completely and places it upon ourselves. I find it so odd to sing and believe we are undeserving of God’s love when the scriptures are all about the lengths God goes through to show His love for us. The Scriptures depict a God who created us with such value in mind so that He could demonstrate His love to us.  Maybe we feel undeserving of His love at times because of past mistakes. But just because you may have a past filled with multiple mistakes and regrets and feel unworthy of God’s love does not mean the way you feel lines up with reality. In fact, it doesn’t reflect reality at all. God…loves…you! Quit the false humility act and just start accepting the reality that you are deserving of His love!