The Unmerited Favor of God

Does God remind us that we don’t deserve His love, mercy, and grace?

I’m pretty sure God doesn’t do that—but we do. We often remind ourselves that we don’t deserve God’s gift of salvation. Don’t misunderstand me: the Bible is clear that our works, apart from God’s work in us, are sinful. I know that anything I produce in my own strength is useless.

It’s true that every human born in Adam is hardwired for sin. We didn’t come into this world desiring to love others sacrificially and unconditionally—we wanted it all for ourselves. But God stepped into our fallen, hopeless lives and loved us enough to do what was necessary to save us from our wretched condition. Did He do that because He needed recognition for being a good God? Absolutely not! God is good, and His goodness doesn’t demand recognition. If it did, His “unconditional” love would suddenly become conditional, based on the gratitude or recognition He receives from us.

Does God need to be grateful? I don’t think so, but I believe He is. I think gratefulness is a godly attribute, and I believe God hardwired us as His children to express gratitude. It’s healthy to reflect on where we’ve come from and see where God has brought us. But it’s unhealthy to get stuck in the past, dwelling on regret and shame, and rehearsing an attitude of “I don’t deserve…” When we do this, our focus shifts more toward ourselves than God.

Seeing where God has brought us from becomes most meaningful when we focus on where He is leading us.

God wants us to experience the power of His life flowing in and through us. When that happens, all works are done in cooperation with His Spirit. These “works” become a group effort.

When I was in seminary, most of my classes were in the school of education. A major difference between that school and the school of theology was the group projects. In almost every class, I could count on having a group assignment. The professor would assign a group of students to work together in researching, writing, and presenting material. No one person could take full credit for the completed project—it was truly a group effort. However, there was always one person appointed as the leader. That person took on the main responsibility for directing and completing the project.

While no analogy is perfect, in this case, God is the professor and the group leader. He has the vision and direction, but He chooses to include us in the work. He doesn’t need us, but He wants us.

In this beautiful relationship, God doesn’t remind us that we don’t deserve to be in His “group.” He doesn’t hold our past mistakes in front of us as a daily reminder of our unworthiness. He knows that’s an ineffective way to produce awe, reverence, gratitude, and humility.

If you think that reminding yourself of your forgiven past has merit, let me ask you this: Have you ever sinned against someone you love? What’s your greatest desire in moving forward in that relationship?

We are designed by God to desire forgiveness—God’s kind of forgiveness. We want that sin to be forgotten, as though it never happened. Why? Because we long to experience a loving relationship without that sin being brought up repeatedly. If we could go back and make a better choice, we would. But we can’t. The best we can hope for is to reach a place in that relationship where we move forward without the weight of the past taking up so much head space.

God’s gift of grace, giving us something we didn’t earn, is an expression of God’s desire for us—a creation He loves to the point of sacrificial love. He wants us to know Him through an intimate relationship. Out of that relationship flows beautiful works of God’s life in and through us.

Paul captures this truth beautifully in Ephesians 2:10:“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

This verse paints a powerful picture for me—of a tool in the hands of God. A tool He designed to express His character to the world. But if we, as that tool, constantly dwell on our unworthiness, we risk becoming like the servant in Jesus’ parable in Matthew 25. That servant, believing he didn’t deserve the one talent he was given, buried it out of fear. Meanwhile, the other two servants took what they were given, embraced the confidence of their master, and invested their talents. They didn’t wake up every morning fixated on their unworthiness. They trusted their master’s view of them and lived accordingly.

So, what’s the point here?

Yes, we were born dead in our trespasses and sins. But Ephesians 2:4–9 reminds us of this truth:

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

We can be humble and grateful for all that God has done and is doing. It’s good to look back with gratitude for how God rescued us from death, but it’s unhealthy—mentally, emotionally, and spiritually—to get stuck in the part of our story where we were helpless and hopeless.

There is a struggle when we remember our past through a lens of shame and regret. But there is an amazing peace and gratefulness when we see it through the lens of God’s love.

Paul says it beautifully in Titus 3:3-7:

“For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

It’s not about whether we “deserve” His love. It’s about the eternal, unmerited, unconditional love of God—a love that covers our past, present, and future.