Receiving the Gift

Spiritual blindness is a frightful thing. I realized this years ago as a youth sponsor. One of the teenagers in our group brought a friend who was a member of a "Christian" cult. During the evening I asked her how a person could be saved and have eternal life. She replied, “Oh, you do it by doing good things.”

I opened my Bible and asked her to read aloud Ephesians 2:8-9. She read, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”

I then asked, “How do these verses say that a person is saved?”

She said, “It says you can be saved by doing good things.”

Is it the simplicity that people stumble over? Receiving the gift of salvation and eternal seems too easy. This is such an important thing—do they think they must do something? That it cannot be free?

My devotional reading today from God is Enough explains that the only thing we can do is be in a receptive attitude. She adds, “This will simplify the matter greatly, and the only thing left to be considered then, will be to discover on whom God bestows this gift and how he is to receive it.”

Of course we cannot boast about it either. My son gave me a magazine subscription. I took it and I thanked him. I didn’t say, “Oh, what a good mother I must be to have earned this gift.” Neither could I boast that I was smart nor had any special skill. This was a gift, and my only boast is in the thoughtfulness and generosity of the one who gave it to me.

Everything in my salvation is a gift—in just the same way. From the day Jesus came into my life through all the days since then, all things pertaining to spiritual life and godliness are gifts from Him. God is the giver and I and the receiver. I don’t do great things to earn any of it, and even if I did, those great things would also be a gift from God. I’ve no room or reason to boast about any of it.

When Adam sinned, the “sin gene” (figuratively speaking) was passed down through all humans and into my heart also. I cannot change that basic fact. I am a sinner. Without the gift of God, that same God has every right to turn His back on me. But He did not do that.

Romans 5:17 says, “For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.”

My life of faith is neither imagination, nor wishful thinking, nor based on anything I do. God keeps me. He keeps my heart focused on Him. He gives me faith to trust Him. He gives me that inner peace that surpasses all understanding. I did not earn it and do nothing to deserve it. While many ask to receive it, I didn’t even do that. God simply gave it to me, and when He did, I experienced something like bright light, a new understanding that drove away my confusion and darkness.

I often think of that girl. She came to only one of our meetings and I quickly lost track of her. I know that apart from the Spirit of God bringing light into her heart, nothing I could do or say would convince her; in her mind she had to earn it all.

Yet I wonder if God used the truth of those verses she read that night to eventually open her heart and mind. Did she ever understand that salvation is an amazing gift from God? Did God help her see that this gift is offered to “whosoever will” receive it through Jesus Christ?

Even as I write this and think about the Scripture and my own salvation experience, I realize that God also gives us that receptive attitude. Truly, salvation is nothing we can do and all about God’s mercy and grace.