Ephesians Devotionals
Bob Morris
The Gift That Saves Us (Ephesians 2:8-9)
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works so that no one can boast.
Here then is the unique mark of Christianity: grace. At first glance, grace seems so unfair, so illogical. Salieri struggled with this issue in the movie Amadeus. How could God have so richly endowed this irreverent and terminally silly Mozart with such vast musical genius, when he, Salieri, had given his musical gifts to God and served him faithfully over so many years? Grace defies our intuitive sense of “just desserts”. But what would be our fate if any of us got what we deserved?
We know when we are honest with ourselves, that our own efforts cannot hope to approach the holiness God demands. Broken New Year’s resolutions are only the most innocuous example of the frustration we experience in our attempts at self-improvement. Works (self-efforts) don’t work! It is especially sad to see the self-flagellation that many religions foster, when you realize how futile it is. In Karachi I have seen Shiite Muslims marching in the annual Muharram parade, flailing their bare backs in the burning sun until they faint with loss of blood. Buddhists mark their entire journey around Mount Kailash in Nepal, by marking each step by their prostrate bodies. I took a photo of a pit of burning coals in India that a devout Hindu traversed with his 3-year-old daughter on his back the night before. The pit was still so hot 12 hours later, you could not get near it; his daughter had died of heat exhaustion during his act of devotion.
The salvation God offers us is his gift; we cannot earn it, nor should we try. Our only response should be to take him at his word, to come to him believing what he says is true, and accept it in humility. Thankfully, our salvation does not depend on our effort.
The challenge in mission is to communicate this wildly counter-intuitive truth to people steeped in “do-it-yourself” religion. For them, grace is close to blasphemy, but for us who believe, it is God’s great gift.
The problem with works-based religion is that followers are prone to boast about their spiritual accomplishments. One of the most highly prized marks in Islam is the dark mark on the forehead of devout worshippers whose foreheads have touched the prayer mat so often, they are bruised. It seems that those who believe that their good deeds gain favour with God have a compulsion to measure their religious merit against others’. Whether in publicly acknowledged philanthropy or in acts of devotion, humans have a compulsion to take credit. Grace-based salvation obviates that. None is better than any other. Only God can take the credit.
Father, we admit that we have done nothing to deserve our salvation. Yet you have granted us all the riches that are in Christ. For this we are truly thankful and ask that our lives will be characterized by gratitude.
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