Day 2400 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Ephesians 2:9 NIV

Well, if that ain't a hit straight to what so many in our world are chasing after. Much of our society is based off of making ourselves look good. It's like we're taught to run off of social praise and positive feedback. So we gear everything we say and do in order to please others. We bend and twist in order to fit the pretty wacky standards of what our world has deemed important. I guess we figure that if we can manage to earn the praise and approval of others then we must be doing something right.

But while that way of thinking and living may work down here, it just doesn't fit what the Gospel is all about. We may be able to do all the right things so that those around us will tell us that we're doing good. We might be able to learn how to say everything just right so that we can earn that praise that fuels our ego and makes us feel better about ourselves. Our world is built on this idea of proving our worth and gaining the validation that we can use to tell ourselves that we're doing enough. But it's all just superficial.

It does nothing but give us the chance to boast. It fills us up with this external justification that we can use to keep convincing ourselves that we're good people. The biggest problem with that is that we're not good. We're all a far cry from good. We have all lived lives filled with so many mistakes and bad choices that we should never worry about trying to prove that we're good. We never will be. That's why Christ came. That's why He took our place on the cross. That's why He spent a few days in a tomb. Not because we've accidentally come close to not messing one or two things up along the way. But because we've gotten more wrong than we've ever come close to getting right.

While we may be able to earn some praise and applause during our time here, we will never earn our way into Heaven. We cannot earn His salvation or forgiveness. We can't buy His love or the promises that He has for those who humbly surrender to a life serving Him. It's all because of His grace. Thankfully, God's motivation for choosing to mercifully offer us forgiveness isn't found in us. It's found in who He is. He is a loving God who wants everyone to be saved from the wicked lives we've lived. But trying to earn it only shifts the focus off of Him and puts it right back on us.

I understand that boasting is the drug of the masses. It's the fuel that so many rely on to keep the wind in their sails so that they don't sink because of the weight of their sins. But we have to understand that worldly boasting means nothing. It is a vapor. It is a trophy that we sit on a shelf or hang on a wall that will rust and tarnish as soon as we're gone. Instead of living to keep our pride on life-support with the applause of a broken world, maybe we should just let it go and move on to humbly focusing something that actually has eternal significance.

Again, we're never going to earn our way into Heaven. The only way is through Christ and a relationship with Him. A bunch of gold stars, pats on the back, or positive feedback cannot punch our ticket. So perhaps we should stop trying to earn what He has already given us. Maybe we should lay ourselves down and stop trying to be the hero of this story. That's His place, and we have to stop trying to take it!

#LeaveNoSoulUntold