Tit for tat, also known as quid pro quo, trade-off, barter, or swap, means, simply, to trade one thing for another, usually fairly, but sometimes without knowing exactly what we’ll get in exchange.
All these have slightly different meanings, of course.
Tit for tat suggests a reprisal. Quid pro quo is a favors system. A trade-off is a forced selection between two choices. To barter is to sell without money. A swap is an even exchange of items or services.
What type of God do we serve? Which of these applies to him? Does he zap us, tit for tat, if we don’t do what he wants? Or do we feel we need to put God in our debt, so we can pull in favors when we need them? Is he a trade-off, useful when we can’t get results any other way? Then we barter with him, or offer to swap penance for an answer to our prayers.
Perhaps God doesn’t fit into any of those definitions. Perhaps God loves us simply because he created us.
Matthew 6:26 puts us high on God’s scale of important things:
“Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”
1 John 1:9 says he will fill our spiritual bank account with no more than a change of heart on our part:
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us [of] all unrighteousness.”
Philippians 4:13 tells us we can plug into him and draw all the power we need:
“I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”
Leviticus 25:7 is his gift to us, comprising everything in creation:
“And for your cattle and for the wild animals that are in your land: all its yield shall be for food.”
This brings us to a conundrum. If God loves us simply because we exist, why is the Bible filled with so many harsh rules? 2 Corinthians 4:4 helps answer that question:
“…The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers…”
There is, indeed, a trade-off in serving God. We have to choose the world or God. If we rebuff him, we risk receiving his tit-for-tat vengeance. We can’t barter our way to heaven. Rather, we have to swap self-indulgence for God-indulgence. It really is a quid pro quo thing, one where God made the first move. He gave us life, all of creation to enjoy, and the option to choose to love him or not. His one desire is to be loved in return.
It’s a good trade. Let’s make it today.
When we choose God, his favors will be a waterfall, filling us up with his good things.
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Code: FGO.D.07.16a.vp.esv