Many people spend their lives trying to get God to “owe” them salvation, or blessing, or answered prayer, etc. But in Job 41:11 we find God stating an important principle: He doesn’t owe anyone anything!
“Who has given to Me, that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is Mine.”
The Lord makes it very clear here: no one has “given” anything to Him which would cause Him to have to “repay” them. God doesn’t owe anyone, anything! This should relieve us of any attempt to get God to “owe” something to us, or “have” to do something for us. Are people trying to do that? Absolutely!
Some think that because they gave something to the church or charity, that God is now under obligation to give them something particular back, or to make them rich, or bless them in some way. They forget what King David said: that whatever we “give” God comes from out of His own hand; from what He had given us already. (I Chronicles 29:14) No matter how much we give, God doesn’t “owe” us anything!
The same is true for our deeds. Whatever we may do for God, He doesn’t “owe” us attention, or blessing, or anything else. If we spend all of our time and days for Him, it comes from the life and strength He has given us anyway, and is only what we ought to give Him.
The bottom line is: you & I may have people who owe us something — but God reminds us here in Job 41:11 that He is not one of them!
shawnethomas 
And along those lines is Jesus’ comment to His disciples in Luke 17:10
“So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.” (ESV)
If we will look at ourselves biblically it will become a great deterrent to false pride.
That’s good, Rick. That verse actually came to mind as I was writing the article. It’s exactly the perspective we should have.
The universe is like a shaken bottle of water. The water represents timespace, energy the Father, “the substance of things hoped for”- Heb11:1. The air represents probability, energy the Holy Spirit, “the evidence of things not seen”- Heb11:1.The bottle itself represents the limitation of impossibilities. The shaking is the one substance exerting its oneness in one direction stirring closed circuitry, represented by the bubbles, that there be something to move out of the way and fill in behind, that all circulating the same way repel, by the basis of Planck’s volume, “the stone which the builders rejected” – Mat21:42, energy the Son, administering orthogonality that not only pushes for confluence for undifferentiation but temporarily blocks the processes of undifferentiation. But, by the second law of thermodynamics undifferentiation is naturally inevitable, centripetal undifferentiating greater than centrifugal orthogonal blocking. Each bubble eventually ceases to exist having its original eternal nonexistence restored. What is it that God took away from us that He didn’t give us, therefore that He owes us back? NONEXISTENCE!
Good afternoon Shawne,
This morning I woke up feeling rather annoyed – putting it mildly – at governments globally mismanaging the cv-19 situation led as they are by ‘scientists’ who appear to be immune to certain hard facts provided by scientists equally qualified on the topic.
I won’t go into the details here.
Anyway, my frustration took me down the road of almost but not quite ‘demanding’ answers from our Lord and Why? given He can do anything are those in ‘charge’ getting away with messing up the entire planet. I confess there’s much of the Pharisee in me.
You ever felt a ‘burning’ within that’s just got to burst out? If so, you’ll know how I was feeling.
I’m coming to the point momentarily.
What is the root of the problem? Actually, to be more accurate and precise the question needs to be reframed to read: What is the root of MY problem?
Answer: Sense of ENTITLEMENT. Whoops!
I believe, by the amazing grace of our Lord, that ‘stumbling across’ your ‘God doesn’t OWE You Anything’ wasn’t actually my stumbling and was more to do with his directing my stubborn mule head in the right way.
So, appreciation where it’s due and I’m grateful for those particular words which resonated with me and cause me to see things differently.
Best
Will
Amen; I appreciate your attitude of submission to the Lord, and letting Him speak to you through His word. Thank you for sharing, Will!
If God owes us nothing, then He is an oathbreaker.
If God ever swears “as sure as he lives,” and does not come through with what he legally swore to give, does he not owe us what he promised just as he holds us in debt when we fail to uphold an end of the deals written out in the Bible?
Jesus speaking for his Father promised to forgive our sins when we forgive others’ sins against us. Would he not owe us the dues we earn in that transaction, likewise with the conditions he placed for heavenly blessing in exchange for tacit almsgiving and authentic prayer?
My point in this article was that in our sinful human nature, we have not and cannot earn God’s favor and blessings. That is not to say that God has not IN HIS GRACE given us amazing promises, which of course we can claim, and which He will perform. But even in claiming them, we do not “demand’ them of Him, as if we had earned them, but claim them humbly and thankfully as gifts of His grace. He doesn’t forgive us because He “owes” it to us; He forgives us in His grace.
what would you say to someone who agrees “God doesn’t “owe us” and we don’t “deserve” because deserve means basically to earn or merit. But then says “God created me, so he should still be obligated in a way to bless us, save us, etc. All because we had no say so in our creation, we didn’t get the chance to decide to be here.
I beg to differ. If you produce children did they have any say in being made? No. And when they were born did you just chuck them down and say I owe you nothing? No because you knew that is immoral and they would not survive. Where did you get the notion that is immoral? God. If it’s immoral for you but not God that makes you more moral than God. I don’t think so.