Good & Valuable Or Sinful & Worthless
Dear Champions,
The short excerpt is by Tim Keller, and the scripture is Ephesians 2:8-9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.
When we are living by the law and believe that we must earn our way to heaven, this is the mindset. "Either I'm good and I'm valuable, or I'm sinful and I'm worthless. If I'm living up to the expectations and obeying all of the rules and doing right, then I'm good and valuable." Then when things go wrong we are angry toward God. "I hate you! How can you do this to me? God, you owe me a better life than this!"
But if we're not living up to our standards when living by the law, then we feel sinful and worthless. When things go wrong we get angry at ourselves instead of at God. We say, "What an idiot! How did I do this? It's all my fault!" We just beat ourselves up!
The gospel doesn't say that we are either good or valuable or sinful or worthless. It says that we are very sinful and absolutely valuable in Christ. Because we know that we are sinful, when bad things happen, we don't complain. We know that it is not a punishment. It must be because of some other broader and bigger plan.
When we live under grace and not under the law, we understand and embrace that we are very sinful and absolutely valuable in Christ.
Champions, have a great week!-David Vining
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