The Gift of God

“…But the gift of God is eternal life.” Romans 6:23

There is only one remedy for darkness and that is light. There is only one remedy for death and that is life. If sin brings eternal death, then the only solution must be eternal life. How, then, do you get eternal life if you have sinned? This is where God throws a big curve ball to the way we think and to what we feel is fair. Thankfully, it is God’s wisdom and not our rationale or feelings that determines what is true.

Most people who believe in heaven and hell believe that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell. Sounds simple enough. If you are bad you deserve hell and if you are good you deserve heaven. But at the end of the day, the wages of all sin is death. We all deserve death. We have earned it because of our sin. None of us deserves eternal life; because no matter how good we are we can never be good enough to earn it.

Eternal life, therefore, is a gift that we do not deserve. This is the greatest news you will ever hear in your lifetime. When we accept what we don’t deserve (eternal life by God’s grace through faith), we won’t get what we do deserve (eternal death). Eternal life is not a goal you achieve; it is a gift that you receive.

It is one thing to earn a salary. It is another thing to receive a gift. Sin pays wages. That wage is death, which is exactly what we deserve. But God gives eternal life as a gift that we do not deserve.

Dear Father, thank you for the gift of eternal life. Help me to live with eternity at the forefront of my mind so that I don't get caught up with temporary things. Amen.