God is NOT fair

For the past few decades, the big trend in corporate America has been “pay for performance.” In other words, the more you do on the job or the better your results for the organization – the greater your compensation.

Pervasive Pay for Performance Mentality

The underlying idea of this trend has been a fundamental component of capitalism since its inception. For example, the more a sales representative sells, the higher their bonus. When a professional athlete performs exceptionally on the field, court, track or ice, their pre-negotiated contract incentives are triggered to produce a cash windfall as well as larger advertising endorsements.

Even our children are indoctrinated into this pay-for-performance mentality when we encourage them to study and pay attention in class. Such conduct enables them to get good grades, which will enable them to graduate high school and get into a good college, followed by a good job…et cetera.

Additionally, politicians routinely play the “fair and equitable” card by playing to our dependence on this model when they claim statements such as, “everyone needs to pay their fair share for this or that program ” or “those who earn the most, have an obligation to pay the most – it’s only fair ”

The reason why this pay-for-performance belief is so embedded within our culture is because we think it’s an equitable and fair model for life. Simply stated, if you do good work and work hard – then you’ll be rewarded accordingly; however, if you’re a lazy slacker who causes problems and doesn’t contribute or advance the group – you won’t be.

As a culture we universally embrace "pay for performance" because we believe it’s fair.

Pay for Performance Doesn't Play in Heaven

Perhaps that’s the main reason why it's currently so uncool, unpopular and out of vogue in America to believe in God – because God is not fair. In other words, He doesn’t give us what we deserve or earned.

Specifically, the Judeo-Christian God does not reward us for how good we are; what we can do for Him; how holy we try to be or any other religious trappings that humans try to conjure up as a way to earn our own redemption. The reason being is that we can’t earn it.

Consider the following passages from the Old Testament that explain why God is not fair as we understand and apply the concept of fairness.

• Psalm 103:10, “ He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.”

• Lamentations 3:22, “The Lord’s loving kindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail.”

God Wants Better Than We Deserve

The reason that God does not treat us fairly as we deserve, is because He wants more than that for us – He wants to treat us better than we deserve. In total, the story of the Bible is not that of a hanging judge looking to levy the maximum penalty for the smallest infraction.

En masse, it’s a story of a supremely-loving judge who willingly submits to his own law. So much so that when a reckless stranger (namely me, you and everyone) commits the worst crimes against the law in His court a penalty must be paid. But in this court, the loving Judge asks His son – who happens to be our defense attorney on the case – to accept the death penalty on our behalf, for this specific crime or any future crime we could commit. Stunningly, the attorney agrees. Do we deserve that?

However, once we accept that ultimate plea bargain, we can leave the court and punishment behind. And every time we do something wrong, we simply throw ourselves on the mercy of the court and remind the Judge of the plea bargain – and the charges are dropped again. Is that fair?

In the Judge’s eyes, the only thing worse than the initial crimes we’ve committed is rejecting the sacrifice of the defense attorney on our behalf – which the Judge allows us to do at our own loss and detriment because mercy can’t be forced, it must be accepted. Do we deserve that?

Westerners Prefer to Work for Redemption

Regardless, this courtroom scenario outlined above seems ridiculous and makes no sense to the modern, pay-for-performance mindset of those of us who embrace the hard-working, boot-strap ethos of capitalist America. We simply can’t wrap our minds around it because it’s supremely unfair – in our favor.

So rather than embrace and accept this incredible FREE offer that is there for the asking, we dismiss it as too good to be true because it’s seemingly irrational and doesn’t make sense.

Maybe that’s why it takes faith to believe that God is ultimately unfair, of that I’m fairly certain.