Earning Your Way

From the time we are little we are taught life lessons by our parents, family and society. One of these that I find the most destructive to faith is the idea that you have to earn your way. This has created an ideaology in the church that directly combats what God has done. I talk to people every day that are struggling with guilt, shame, unmet expectations and a battered identity that leaves them constantly feeling unworthy. This idea has created generations in the church who have accepted salvation because they know they need a savior and sadly it is often those same people who proceed to live as though they now have to earn what was given.

Friends, if you lived the rest of your days and the only thing you ever do is draw into an intimate relationship with the One who loves you God would be absolutely pleased with you. Faith is not about how good we are, what we do or how hard we try to meet some expectation of what a “good” Christian is like. It is about knowing and loving Him. It is not about trying to earn our way into His kingdom it is about receiving what He has already given. It is not achieving a place or obtaining some level of “good living” it is about living out who He says we are.

So often we think things like “I am a sinner saved by grace” or we think I need to do more, be more, or be better to be worthy we believe we are walking humbly before God. In reality when we place greater worth on our opinions by saying these things or trying to earn our way to being acceptable we are really walking in pride. You see any time we value our self deprecating thoughts we are saying our opinion is more important than His. He says we are loved and accepted. When we accept Jesus we are gifted with everything He purchased at the cross. We are told we are a new creation but we still drag around our old corpse. We still try to earn our way into a kingdom position as sons that has already been given to us. That word sons is not used to convey gender but to convey relationship and position. Stop trying to earn what is already yours and instead ask how to live in it.

I often see people struggle with this because they feel unworthy but my friends this position as sons of God is not based on us it based on Him. Nothing can change who He has decreed you to be, co heirs with Christ. If you were born into a noble family you may have to be taught how to walk, talk and act as royalty but regardless of anything you do you are still a royal. So it is with us our position is never earned but rather given in love and our duty is to know our King.