I thought God owed me

When I was young in the Lord, I thought God owed me. “Look, God,” I remember thinking, “I’ve given you my life. I’ve given you everything. I’ve given you my family. It all belongs to you.” I was working sixty hours on a job in addition to being involved with a full-time youth ministry. I thought, “God, you have to take care of my family. You have to take care of my relationship with my wife. After all, I’m serving you; I gave you my whole life.”

I later realized that God didn’t owe me anything. God did not owe me a strong marriage or a healthy family. But even though I did not deserve it, God wanted to give me a strong marriage and family because of His awesome grace. Praise God for His grace!

The grace of God, His free unmerited favor, affects every area of our lives. We can do absolutely nothing except by the grace of God (I Cor. 15:10). Do we deserve a bright, sunny, summer day? No. But we receive the sunshine because of the grace of God. We stand in a position for the sun to shine on us, and when we see the sun, we receive it. As Christians, we need to get into a position to receive the grace of God in our lives every day.

The bible tells us to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). Growing in grace is a process. It doesn’t just happen overnight. God gives us grace to grow every step of the way if we walk in obedience to Him. We were saved because of God’s grace through faith (Ephesians 2:5,8) and we continue each day to receive grace to live for Him.