Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
Nobody likes when someone takes credit for something that they did right. It's those moments, like when you're in school and you get put into a group project and you know that the people you're with are just not going to carry their weight.
You put in all of the effort. You're the one who's scheduling all the meetings. At the end of the day, you're the one who earned that grade on the project. But everybody else gets credit for what you've done.
The Question About Credit
I want you to think about that in terms of our faith life. Have you ever taken credit for the work that God has done and is doing in your life?
Our Verse of the Day reminds us of the importance of giving credit where credit is due. It comes from Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8. Paul writes, "God saved you by His grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God."
My Grandpa's Cars
My grandpa—I love this man. He restores old vintage cars, and he's done this as long as I've been alive. I remember so fondly going over to my grandparents' house. They had this giant garage in their backyard that was probably bigger than their house, and it was just filled with these beautiful cars that he had taken—that were junkers—and he restored them into pristine condition.
We'd sneak in—me and my cousins and my siblings—and all those aromas of oil and gas and gasoline just fled back into my mind. We would hop into these cars and we would sit there and just pretend to drive around—like we were driving a movie star around town.
The Promise of a Car
I remember how exciting it was when our grandparents told us that when we turned 16 and we got our licenses, every single one of us were going to get one of these cars.
My brother was the oldest grandchild, so he was the first one who got to receive this promise. It was this beautiful 1960s Mustang. This thing was like everything you could dream of as a 16-year-old.
The Dream Becomes a Burden
He got it, and I remember within the first month, something went wrong. It was an old car, so he'd fix it up and then something else would go wrong, and something else would go wrong.
Before we knew it, this beautiful promise fulfilled was just becoming a burden as we poured more time and attention into it.
When We Make Salvation a Project
I share that story because I think sometimes that's what we can do with our salvation. We receive it with so much joy and excitement. It seems like a dream to us. But then we just start to make it a project and a chore, viewing our lives as something where we have to go and fix that. We've got to take that junk out, and we've got to replace this part and that part. What was supposed to be something joyous becomes something that just becomes burdensome.
Taking Credit for Salvation
I was thinking about that as I read through this verse, because I think for a lot of us, this mentality happens when we start to take credit for the gift of salvation.
Here's what I mean by that. When we view salvation as something that we have to earn, that our works have to be a part of it—where we clean ourselves up, we enter into this life with Jesus, and then we spend the rest of it trying to maintain what we think we've earned. We view it as, I've got to fix this, and I've got to fix that.
Salvation Is a Gift
What Paul reminds us here in Ephesians is that our salvation is a gift from God that we receive when we believe. There's nothing that we have done to earn it. There's nothing that we can do to lose it when we receive it.
When we receive it with faith, God looks at us as His own child—clean, righteous, holy, and pure. That doesn't mean that there aren't things that we will be transformed in as we're made more and more into the image of Jesus. But that's not the point of your salvation.
The Point of Salvation
The point of your salvation is that God wants to give you this gift of grace—to have a relationship with Him now and into eternity.
Stop trying to take credit for your salvation. God has done all the work that is necessary. All you have to do is receive it with joy and gladness.
