Here’s A Gift You and I Could Never Afford

by Curtis Shelburne

TO ACCEPT something we have in no way earned can be difficult. It offends our sensibilities. It kills our pride. To learn that we have no claim to the “bread of righteousness” but must look up to God for “the crumbs of grace” feels a great deal to us like accepting charity, taking a handout, receiving a gift which would indebt us deeply and forever to the Giver. It seems that way, well, because it is that way.

How, we religious folks want to know, can we obtain salvation? How, our un-churched friends want to know, can we find genuine happiness, fulfillment, contentment?

All “ways” to salvation that have ever been tried boil down in the final analysis to only two: grace through faith or law through works. Gift? Or wage? They are mutually exclusive. We must choose.

Ah, but to accept such an undeserved gift would be deadly to our pride. Yes, it would. Which is precisely what God intended. Some of us, generally well-intentioned but seriously mistaken (and desperately needing to spend some time grappling with Paul’s Letter to the Romans) worry, “If salvation is based completely on what Christ has already done, what does that leave for me to do?” as if we might not only be humbled, we might be out of work! How else, we want to know, can I show that I’ve earned God’s gift? But a gift that is earned is no gift at all.

Behind our question lies one like this: “Do you mean to say that I’ve lived all of my life as a good Christian but that a serial killer who truly repents and accepts Christ is just as acceptable to God as I am?” Yes. And if that hurts, our pride is not dead yet, and we have far too high an opinion of ourselves. (Read Matthew 20:1-16.) Is Christ’s sacrifice all-sufficient? Or is it not? Gift? Or wage?

If you can add something to Christ’s sacrifice, at least part of your salvation becomes a wage. And if part is a wage, what part? How much? How can you ever be sure that you’ve worked enough? And if you can never be sure, how can you ever really be at peace with God? You can’t. Not that way. It won’t work. It never has.

The Good News is that we can have peace. Salvation is always available. Wonderfully. Freely. As a gift. Once our pride dies. Once we lower ourselves to accept the most expensive gift ever given. It is a gift bought and paid for. But you didn’t buy it. Nor did I. Nor could we. Ever. It was bought by Christ. For you. For me. A lifetime spent loving the Lord and his children is the proper response to his love, but it will never earn for us what is already freely given.