Given, Not Earned

This week’s four verses are light in length but heavy in message. Paul uses phrases like “blessed us”, “chose us”, “in love”, and “freely given” to describe how God views and loves us. While God certainly loves us today, Paul emphasizes how He’s loved us always, long before the world was created!

In this love though, there is a desire by God for how we live our lives, “to be holy and blameless.” Thankfully, next Paul writes how we are adopted through Jesus Christ, no doubt knowing on any given day we’re neither holy or blameless on our own, but only through Jesus’ shed blood on the cross.

A reminder in these verses is that God's salvation is given, not earned, and we should not have pride in our salvation. It was freely given to all through Jesus, as humans we must acknowledge and accept this gift. Because of this grace, Paul urges us to praise God and if we can continually have that praising mindset and soft heart, how we live our lives will more align with God’s desires.

-Alex Pfister