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Ephesians 2:8
For it is by grace you have been saved, through
faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the
gift of God—
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February 26
Salvation by Grace
Jesus told a parable that illustrates what Paul
teaches in Ephesians. A Pharisee goes to
temple, boastful with his chest puffed out
because he was a good man. Next a tax
collector comes, beating his chest and broken
down, crying for mercy because he realizes that
he's a sinner.
No matter how good or bad we think we are, in
God's eyes we're all in the same boat.
We're sinners in need of a Savior. For
those who have been saved for some time, it is
easy to forget what it was like before we were
saved. For those who grew up in the
church, we may have never even experienced life
without Christ.
We must be careful not to expect people to come
to God on our terms. Sometimes we expect
people who visit the church to act like we do or
speak like we do even though they have no reason
to because they are not Christians.
God wants us to come to Him and then clean up
our act, not the other way around. If we
are fortunate enough that we never experienced
life without Christ, we should still recognize
that we could be just the same as the visitor to
church. And if we were the church outsider
at some time, we need to remember back to what
it felt like and reach out to people in a
similar situation.
We didn't earn our salvation and we shouldn't
expect anyone else to do anything before they
are accepted by God either. Salvation is a
gift, nothing else. Praise God! |
