Is God fair?

Before you answer, consider the next question, “What’s “fair”?” Is it an agreement between differing sides, a declaration from a judge, or an evenly dispersed resource? The difficulty with “fair” is that most people have opinions and they vary widely. What may be “fair” to one, is “injustice” to another. With God, the term “fair” falls way short of an accurate description. We tend to imagine Him as one who takes things into consideration, mulls them over, and then takes appropriate action (according to the preferences of the one doing the imagining). However, in the book Romans, Paul was led to write this:

“For there is no partiality with God.” – Romans 2:11 NKJV

God doesn’t have blind prejudice or bias; He always sees the truth. In regards to us, He had full knowledge of our sin, yet still chose to make a way to know Him. And since He’s totally righteous, He dealt with sin the only way possible without compromising His perfect holiness…payment. “Fair” would have been Him deciding who deserves to pay, but “grace” was Him deciding to make the payment Himself.

We live each day as recipients of grace. As we do, we must also be careful not to let the idea of fairness sabotage our attitude toward others. “Not fair” can quickly turn into “I deserve”, but that’s when we need to remember that God set aside “fair” for “grace”. And some days we need His help to do the same for others…perhaps even today.