I love gifts. (Who doesn’t, right?) I love getting gifts, and I love giving gifts. But I wonder if any of us understand what a gift truly is. We know that a gift is different from an earned paycheck. But sometimes we think we actually deserve the gifts we receive. We lived another 365 days and we were a great wife/mom/daughter/friend, so we get a gift. We receive gifts from our friends and loved ones – people don’t typically give gifts without having any reason to do so.
Can you imagine giving the most costly gift to someone who has done nothing to deserve it but has done everything to not deserve it?
We’ve been looking at Ephesians 2:4-5 in recent weeks, and prior to these verses, Paul reminds us that we were dead in our sin, following after the “prince of the power of the air” and living in rebellion against God (Ephesians 2:1-3). And yet, God gave us the gift of His grace and mercy.
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.” (Ephesians 2:4–5)
By grace we have been saved. This is a gift freely given by God—we don’t deserve it, and we can’t earn it. Paul makes this abundantly clear a few verses later:
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
This is the beauty and wonder of God’s grace—it’s a gift we couldn’t earn by being a good person or doing something to make ourselves stand out in God’s eyes. We didn’t have any way to save ourselves, and He sent His Son to rescue us. We were in bondage to sin and death, and He sacrificed His Son to set us free. We were sinners living in rebellion against Him, and He gave His Son to take the punishment our sin deserved and give us eternal life.
No matter what you face this week, you’ve been saved by the gift of God’s grace.
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