I Am A Sinner.

I am a Christian.

I am not perfect.

And I am both at the same time.

I am a sinner. I am a child of the King.

I go to church. I smile, I sing, and I say all the right things.

But I go home and fight with my sister, snap at my parents, and watch TV instead of spending time with God.

I look really good. I look like a good Christian girl. I do all the good Christian things.
But inside I'm a fallen, broken sinner.

Liars. Thieves. Murderers. Worse. But I'm no better than them. I deserve to go to hell.  I deserve no better than them because I'm one of them. A sinner. I'm going to hell.

Except for one thing.

God's grace.

For some unexplainable reason, God chose me. He chose to give me salvation.  He chose to save me from hell. I did nothing. As much as I would love to think I did, that I contributed to my salvation, I did nothing .

Nothing.

God did everything.

I'm broken. But God chose to love me, to save me, to bring me to live with Him in Heaven forever.
I have said this before, but if you haven't noticed, I really like to keep control in my hands. The fact that I can't control even a smidgen of my salvation is difficult for me to swallow.  I mean, if all the good things I do don't contribute to my salvation, what's the point?

My all-time favorite verse is Ephesians 2:8-10.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

God's gift of grace, received through faith, saves us from eternal condemnation.  Not one thing we can ever do can contribute one bit to God's gift. Like it or not, that's the way God made it to be.

So why do we act like we have anything over anyone else? We act like we somehow did something that made God pick us. And then we treat non-Christians like we're better, like we deserved the salvation we have.

That is exactly why God made it the way it is: so that no one can boast.

Because if we contributed anything to boast about, you'd better believe I would be out there boasting.

But we can boast.  We can boast in what God has done for us. (This idea is repeated often in Paul's writings, especially to the Corinthians.) We can boast in the cross.

I mentioned good works earlier. It seems that God puts a lot of emphasis on the way we live and that we do good to our neighbors.  But if those works don't add anything to our salvation, why bother?

I'm glad you asked. This is for a few reasons: 1) The Bible is like an instruction manual, telling us how God designed us to live and how to live as a follower of Christ. 2) I believe that, when we obey God wholeheartedly, if imperfectly, God is pleased; He loves us and wants the best for and from us. 3) Good works, especially kingdom-building works, have been set out for us long ago. 

We have been given a mission to fulfill in our lives.  If we spend all our time and effort trying to earn our salvation, we won't have any left over to complete our quest. 

Your salvation has been paid in full.  Stop trying to save yourself; you can't. Only God can, and He did it all. It's done.  You can't add to it. Instead, let God show you the good works He has prepared beforehand for you to walk in them.