The Gift

Ephesians 2:8 reminds us of something else:

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;

For some reason, as we walk along in life we get trapped into thinking that we can do something to earn his grace by giving excessively of our money, working hard to volunteer every time we’re asked, or singing the loudest or being the boldest when it comes to telling others about Him.

Works of kindness and love are great.  But they are no substitute for grace.  And they aren’t the reason for his grace toward us.

It’s hard to receive gifts from others when we don’t feel deserving, we barely know them, or we know we haven’t even been kind to them.  And sometimes that causes to feel like we then have to give back out of duty, because what will they think if we don’t?

God give us grace, it’s a gift.  And any giving we do back to him should be out of thanksgiving and love, not so that we can prove that we deserve it.

We don’t deserve it.

But he gave anyway.

And it’s a gift we can receive gladly and graciously by giving thanks.