Verse of the Day

February 14, 2016

Scripture

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast. - Ephesians 2:8-9 NIV

Devotion

In Ephesians 2:1-3 the Apostle Paul describes humanity's sorry spiritual state outside of Christ. He says that we were dead in our transgressions and sins, we used to follow the ways of the world and Satan, 'the ruler of the kingdom of the air,' and we used to gratify 'the cravings of our flesh.' Given this sorry state, he says that 'we were by nature deserving of wrath.' 

Happily, however, things changed for some of us. Some of us have accepted the gospel concerning Jesus Christ and have been saved. Some of us have been rescued from humanity's wretched state. 

Why? What happened? 

What happened was that God did something. God did something about our sorry spiritual state. Instead of leaving us to the wrath we deserved, He saved us. Why? It was because He loved us: 'But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions' (Ephesians 2:4-5). When the gospel of Jesus Christ was presented to us God gave us the favor and grace necessary to believe by faith that the gospel is true. We were made alive with Christ by grace through faith. 

It was, therefore, not from us. It was from God. Although it is certainly true that we are the ones that actually have the faith, although it is certainly true that God credits our faith to us as righteousness (Genesis 15:6; Romans 4:22), it was God's grace and favor in the first place that enabled us to have the faith necessary for salvation. It is true that in order to be saved we must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 16:31), but God's grace enables us to believe in Him. 

Our faith is not, then, the product of our own effort and work. It is the product of God's grace. We can't boast about our faith as though we achieved it on our own. As Paul says elsewhere, 'Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded' (Romans 3:27). 

On the day that is coming we won't stand before God boasting about ourselves, but crying out 'Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb' (Revelation 7:10).