“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. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”
What is grace? We hear that word thrown around a lot; we even use that word for mealtime prayer. In Greek, that word “grace” (charis) means “favor,” or “bending down to show kindness.” Imagine a king reaching down to bestow gifts upon the commoners in his kingdom. Pure generosity that cannot be earned and is not deserved.
Sometimes we try to earn God’s love. We try to add up our good deeds and hope that impresses God. But there is no reward because there is no deed great enough. Instead, we are the wondrous craft of the master craftsman who takes tremendous pride in his work. He had some pretty awesome thing in mind when he hand-made us.
Here’s your freedom for today: you don’t have to earn a thing with God. You’ve already got his love. You don’t need to do anything to get more of it. He’s already shown you grace. You don’t need to beg for gifts or kindness. He loves you. He wants you. He’s lavishing you with generous grace and adopting you into his family. He wants all the credit which means you don’t have to work to get any. Take a deep breath. Stop trying to earn things. Just sit and let him love you today.