I had a moment of envious today when I went to “my office” to write children’s curriculum. I have been a gold card member of Starbucks since 2009 and I knew they were changing their point system. It was going to be harder for me to get free drinks, but this new thing seems so UNFAIR! To make it worse; Starbucks is advertising for the month of April, any drink gets you gold status.
My flooded thoughts:
It took me 30 drinks of green status to get Gold status; and now it only takes one drink for other people to…UNFAIR!
I have to keep drinking 30 drinks a year to keep this status and now they are giving it away to anyone…UNFAIR!
The point system changes, everyone is now on gold status; I lose out with the change…UNFAIR!
Should I keep going to Starbucks…
Then a story hit me, yes, a story from the Bible. It is a story of what most would see as unfair! In Matthew 20, we find the parable of the workers in the vineyard. It goes like this: landowner goes out early in the morning and hires workers promising to pay them a days wage. He must have had a lot of work because he does the exact same thing at 9am, noon, 3pm and 5pm. At the end of the day, the wages are handed out. They start with those who were hired at 5pm and move to those hired at the beginning of the day. What did each person get? What was promised, a day’s wage. You can imagine the grumbling that took place and the UNFAIR thoughts that took place. But the landowner reminded the workers that each were promised only a day’s wage and that is exactly what they received.
In this story, Jesus was using a parable in reference to the kingdom of Heaven. God promises those that come to Him will be saved and can come live with Him. Doesn't matter it they come at the beginning or the end of their life. It doesn’t matter how much they did during their lifetime for Him. All that matters is that they accept Him!
For some Christians this is hard to swallow! It seems UNFAIR! I got saved when I was young and have led a long life of obedience, reading my Bible, praying, going to church etc. Then this guy who led a life of disobedience, never read the Bible or went to church, but prayed a prayer at the end of his life gets in?!?! UNFAIR! Status doesn’t matter! What we did in our lifetime doesn’t factor into this promise. God made the promise that WHOEVER comes to Him will be saved and spend eternity with Him!
This is a very dangerous trap for Christians! UNFAIR is really leading into a spirit of enviousness! In reality, we should be excited that God keeps His promises! That any person can come to God and be saved! To be honest: who really deserves for God to save them? None! Fairness is subjective to the person looking at it. We are all doomed with no way to save ourselves and God intervenes to save us.
