Does God owe us anything?
This question comes from my walk with Papa yesterday. I was thanking him for all that he is, all that he does for me, and I found myself saying that I owe him everything. The logical follow-up to that is to acknowledge that he doesn't owe me anything, and I started to say that, but I felt a check in my spirit.
So we talked about it. He reminded me that he required people who make a promise to him to fulfil that promise [Numbers 30:2, Deuteronomy 23:21-23, Ecclesiastes 5:4&5 for starters]; if he expects that of us, then he will expect that of himself as well.
So yeah, if he has promised something, he does owe me the thing he has promised.
• It's complicated by the reality that there are things that I think he has promised which he has not actually promised. That's my error.
• It's complicated by the fact that some promises in Scripture have conditions on them: If you do this, then God will do that. Ignorance of the conditions does not invalidate them.
• It's complicated by the reality that not every warm and fuzzy statement in the Bible is a promise to me personally, or to the people I hang out with. It's beyond the scope of this article to identify which are for me and which are for someone else.
• It's complicated by the fact that he doesn't generally promise to live up to the timetable of my expectations. He very well could be still working on it.
• It's complicated by the reality that sometimes we think that we're owed something because of what I've done (or tried to do), or because I think of myself as something special. That is not part of his promises, and he specifically rules it out [Titus 3:5].
• It's complicated by the reality that there are promises that he has already fulfilled that I haven't seen/experienced yet. I don't know if that's my mistake, or if that's just the way life is (or if he's just being sneaky, like my bride does with birthday presents).
So yeah, God owe us anything? Yeah, he does. But only what he's promised. He doesn't owe us anything based on who we are or what we've done for him.
It strikes me that it might be worth my time to learn what promises God has actually made, and listening to warm fuzzy things that other people say about God is not a substitute.
At least that's how I see it. How do you see it?
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