A 'Max Lucado' from several days ago:

SALVATION IS NOT EARNED

"I became a Christian about the same time I became a Boy Scout, and I made the assumption that God grades like the Boy Scouts do: on a merit system. Good scouts move up. Good people go to heaven.

"So, I resolved to amass of multitude of spiritual badges. I worked toward the day when God, amid falling confetti and dancing cherubim, would drape my badge-laden sash across my chest and welcome me into his eternal kingdom, where I would humbly display my badges for eternity.

"But some thorny questions surfaced. How many badges does he require? How good is good?  And then I was corrected. Ephesians 2:8 (NASB) says, 'For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.' Unearned. A gift. Our merits merit nothing. So let grace happen, for Heaven’s sake."

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