Tuesday, 17 December 2019

Lest any man should boast

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. - Ephesians 2.8-10

Salvation is God’s great gift. The thing about. Gift is that it can’t be earned and if he could be earned we would surely brag about how great we were in order to achieve it. We would be like the Pharisee who bragged about how he paid this tithes and observed the sacrifices and did his good deeds as a way to enter the kingdom of God. The poor sinner, on the other hand, simply said ‘be merciful to me a sinner.’

It would be easy to brag if we got to heaven based on how much good as opposed to how much bad we had done, and, to be honest, we would deserve it. God’s standard is perfection. Sadly, that just ain’t gonna happen so no one is going to be able to take credit for getting to heaven.

Our only hope is the cry of the sinner we saw above. ‘I can’t do anything Lord. I am a sinner unworthy of You. Show me Your mercy.’

As the old song put it ‘boasting excluded, pride I abase, I’m only a sinner saved by grace.’

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