I became a Christian about the same time I became a Boy Scout and made the assumption God grades on a merit system. Good scouts move up. Good people go to heaven.
I resolved to amass a multitude of spiritual badges. I worked toward the day when God, amid falling confetti and dancing cherubim, would drape my badge-laden sash across my chest, welcome me into his eternal kingdom, where I could humbly display my badges for eternity.
But some thorny questions surfaced. How good is good? What is the permitted percentage of exaggeration?
Ephesians 2:8 says: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.”
Unearned. A gift. Our merits merit nothing.
Let grace happen, for heaven’s sake. Of all the things you must earn in life, God’s unending affection is not one of them. You have it!
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