Serves You Right
Imagine, if you will, a small boy who has a favorite stuffed animal friend he plays with each day and sleeps with at night. It is his best friend and dearly loved. One day, while outside playing with his stuffed friend, a neighbor’s dog comes and snatches his stuffed friend and starts ripping it to shreds. The boy is traumatized and comes inside crying and tells his father what happened, and he tells him, “Serves you right, if you wouldn’t have taken it outside with you, that would have never happened. It’s all your fault. I hope you’ve learned a lesson from it.”
Sadly, this story depicts the way many think of God. They expect that when bad things happen to them if they go to Him, they will only hear: “Serves you right!”
What a sad way to see God. Yet, it is what a legalistic mindset produces. Some may even think God sent the neighbor’s dog to do what it did just to teach a lesson to the boy.
I am not saying there are no consequences to sin. Sin has a way of punishing those who give in to it, no doubt. But it is not God actively punishing. It is the fruit of sin doing it.
Whenever anyone who is experiencing the disappointment and pain of sin comes to God, they do not hear, “Serves you right.” They are met with compassion and mercy. If they turn to God in their time of hurt and pain, they are met with a loving response that points them to Jesus.
God is not in heaven saying to all who do wrong, “Serves you right.” He’s not hoping for bad things to happen. In fact, He went out of His way to make it possible to set things right between us and Himself despite our sins.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever would believe Him might be saved.
Galatians 4:4 But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
The neighbor’s dog in the story is like our enemy Satan, who has come to steal, kill, and destroy. He loves to get involved and bring as much pain and misery into lives as he can. He will take what is precious to a person and mercilessly tear it to shreds with glee.
The father in the story is like the law. It only sees the reality of the situation and the facts surrounding it. It cannot show mercy, nor can it help. The law can only demand better of a person or else. The law is strict and exacting. If a person wishes to try to be right with God by means of the law, they must be able to keep every part of it without offending in even the smallest matter of it.
James 2:10 For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.
The law brings you to “Serves you right.” Grace and truth in Jesus Christ bring you to “Here, my child, let me help you.” Let Jesus show you the Father’s love today!
