Speaking to the Soul – April 15

To boast

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

I remember my first pay packet as a teenager. It was a small brown envelope and it contained what, at the time, seemed to me like a considerable amount of money. It wasn’t really very much but I had never had a job before, and it compared favourably with pocket money! I had received that money because I had done many days of hard physical work in a warehouse. And it may well be that you can see a clear connection between all that you own and the hard work that you have put in. For this very reason it can be very difficult to accept that our salvation is completely unlike this. Because however hard we work, and however nice we are, we will never be able to earn salvation.

The problem is that we are all sinners. We have all fallen short of God’s standards. The fact that some people seem to be much worse than others is neither here nor there. No amount of hard work will earn us salvation. All we can do is to accept the gift of God, which Paul describes as grace. Grace is the totally undeserved gift of new life, which God gives to those who are willing to receive it. And because it is entirely the result of God’s generosity, and nothing to do with our good actions, we never have any reason
to boast about what we have done. All we can do is accept the gift, give thanks to God and then boast about how brilliant he is.

QUESTION
In what ways are you able to boast of what God has done in your life?

PRAYER
Loving Father, thank you for the amazing generosity that you have shown me. Help me today to find opportunities to boast about what you have done for me. Amen

Photograph from grounds of St Mark’s Church, Dundela