"God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it."
-Ephesians 2:8-9 NLT
Now, hold on. This is another one of those "finish the verse in my head before I finish reading it" verses. Hear me out, though. I'm pretty sure I've had this passage marked on my brain since Cubbies (and for those of you who don't know what I mean by "Cubbies," it's Awana's version of preschool). I know I have a hard time processing it every time I hear or read it, but a friend of mine brought it to my attention the other day, and I am so thankful, because I never truly grasped the depth and weight of this passage.
God performs an incredible act of kindness on our behalf in these verses. He does not wait for us to be the best Christian we can be, nor does He wait for us to even try. The very second that we accept His grace and love, He takes the broken shards of our shattered lives and puts them back together to form a beautiful stained glass window. Out of the ashes of the lives that we feebly attempt to build, yet destroy, rises a new and glorious flame as a result of His good grace.
This grace is presented as a gift, or better said a trade. Here, Christ is trading our death for His life. He took on the death that we deserved, our cross, and gave us a life that we could never fathom, His crown. Grace, the gift that the Lord deemed worthy to die for, is now what we are living for. It is only by His grace that any of this took place, and only His limitless love that we are alive in Him today.
I am praying that you would take the time to consider this trade. Are you making the most of it?
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