God's Fairness

Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous? Matthew 20:15

In Matthew 20 Jesus tells the story of the owner of the vineyard who needed work done, so he went out at different times of the day to hire workers. The first ones were hired at the dawning of the day, and the last bunch were hired an hour before the work was completed. The work was finished, and that is important to remember.

The average working man was no different in Jesus’ day to the employee of today. They saw what happened and they grumbled. Oh we are good at moaning aren’t we? The owner of the vineyard offered the same wage to the labourers whether they started first or last. You can imagine the ones who had been out in the sun all day sweating, as they discovered that the ones who worked for just an hour, got the same money. It’s not fair, I can hear them say.

Do you think a Christian who has been on the way for many years is worth more to Jesus than the late arrival? What about the thief on the cross? He got in literally as he was breathing his last. Did Jesus think any less of him for coming late? Not at all. So, if you think you are worth less in God’s eyes for any reason, compared to any other Christian, think again. We are all equally precious in His sight. What a comforting thought!

You are precious to me, and I have given you a special place of honour. I love you. That’s why I am willing... to save your life. Isaiah 43:4

Justice, Kindness and Humility

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8

Sometimes it’s good to get back to basics, especially when it comes to the Christian life of faith. The Bible says a lot about how we should live, but this verse distils it to a level we should all understand quite easily. In truth, our friends of other faiths, or none, even recognise these characteristics and expect to see them..

The justice of God is over all, but we are told that we should ‘do justice’ ourselves when it comes to all of our own dealings. I would suggest we know this, and for the most part, we do it. It can be very obvious if we are unjust in our dealings with others, and that is not a good reflection on us, so we try hard to be fair and just.

‘Loving kindness’ also comes quite easily, especially when we are talking about those folks we like and get along with. Since we choose our company carefully, we tend not to include those we don’t like, so for the most part there is no difficulty in loving and showing kindness to our circle of friends.

So far, so good, but what about ‘walking humbly’ with God? I don’t know about you, but this might be a difficult one. After all, we strive to find humility, and when we think we have it, we show some pride. Humility is a characteristic which is best achieved starting from the heart, and not by what we do on the outside. The best examples are those people I know who are humble by nature, but don’t know it. God shines through their faults and flaws, and His witness in their lives bears testimony to the work of salvation. The Apostle says it perfectly when he says in John 3:30, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”. Only as we allow God to become increasingly important in our life, will our pride decrease, and that is the key. We may not have much direct control over our humility, but we can do something about our pride. When we do that, we may be on our way to humility that others will see in us. With God’s help of course!