Saved By Grace
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” Ephesians 2:8
If you’re in high school right now, you may be faced with a lot of folks giving you advice about what you need to do to get into college. Maybe you need to get your grades up a little or throw yourself into one sport or activity in order to get noticed. Perhaps you’ve been advised to focus more on service to the community, to think up a non-profit idea that will save the world (and also have colleges knocking on your door).
All of these recommendations are great goals to work at, but striving towards them might make us feel like our achievement, background, and hard work will get us where we need to go in life. Naturally, this attitude spills over into how we think about our relationship with God.
If we work really hard at being good, will we get to God? Will he notice us and accept us because he has seen how dedicated and serious we are about following him? What makes us worthy to receive God’s grace and salvation? What qualifies us to be freed from sin and given eternal life? Is it what family we were born into? How many Bible verses we have memorized? How many times we read the Bible each week?
No! to all of these questions! The only thing that qualifies us to receive God’s grace and eternal life is our need. Nothing we do or work at makes us presentable to God. The only thing we need is to be needy.
We must be convinced of how big our sin is AND how big our God is. We must know we cannot save ourselves and that we need a rescuer to wash away our sin and make us clean before God. We need Jesus’ perfect record of righteousness and his willingness to die for our sins to give us access to God.
Where are you in your neediness? Are you convinced that you cannot save yourself or are you still building up a resume of good works, accomplishments, and a good name?
Our Rescuer saves us even from our attempts to make ourselves presentable. He knows our hearts intimately and loves us passionately.
For Further Reading: Ephesians 2:4-10