Equal before God

https://odb.org/2023/12/15/equal-before-god

Life is never equal for everyone. I used to wonder and even lament why I was born in Malaysia to ethnic Chinese parents (with Baba Nyonya blood in my mum’s side) where we faced institutional discrimination from when we were young. They say the Chinese are rich, but we were certainly not. Until the day my dad, our sole breadwinner, retired as a primary school teacher, we were still making ends meet month to month. The retirement brought him a gratuity after 35 years of government service. That was his life savings, and there was finally a significant surplus in the family balance sheet. I used to wonder why I was not born into the majority race in Malaysia? But after knowing Jesus, I count it a blessing I was not. As migrants and a minority, we had to be resilient to face the world and still come up tops. With God on our side, we have fared better as a family without the benefit of inherited wealth and despite facing obstacles unique to our situation in life.

But God is fair in the sense that when it comes to our faith and who we are in Him, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Not only in terms of humanity but also the inequality of our birth is irrelevant and inconsequential to Jesus. He came and died for our sins regardless of who we are in the world, whether Jew or Gentile, whether a beggar or a billionaire, an infantry or a general, a Chinese, Malay or Indian or Kadazan or Iban, Persian or Arab? So long as we are humans, our blood is red, and we will be susceptible to disease and old age, and one day, all of us will die and meet Jesus. Will it be at the Great White Throne Judgment or the Judgment Seat of Christ (bema, in Greek)? Do we believe by faith that Christ died for our sins and was resurrected on the 3rd day, and do we accept Him as our Lord and Saviour? Are our names written in the Book of Life?

On reflection, after working for more than 30 years now and having lived for more than 50 years, my conclusion is that it doesn’t really matter who we were born as. It is for us to make something out of our lives, but most importantly, we are all equal before God. Each and every one of us is given an equal chance to accept and know Jesus as our Lord and Saviour. God will help and mould everyone who comes to Him for Him to fulfil His plans and purposes for our lives. He loves and cares for us all in equal measures. In the end, that’s what matters the most. Life may not be fair, but God is.

Paul wrote it so beautifully in Romans 8:38-39: For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come. Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

My exhortation to all of us today is to forget the past and what is behind, and instead strain toward what is ahead and press on to win the prize for which God has called us heavenward in Christ Jesus. Make sure we make it past the finish line with our names still written in the Book of Life! Hallelujah! God is good, all the time!