I am in the middle of reading through an advent reading plan as we run up to Christmas and today I was in the book of Ephesians where Paul is writing about the significance of Jesus’ death and resurrection. It’s a passage many believers will know well. Paul begins by talking about how we used to be when we were ‘dead’ in our sin. He then pens these famous verses;

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions —it is by grace you have been saved. Ephesians 2:4-5

Once again in this blog I’m simply repeating a truth that has resounded through the ages, but think about what those verses say. We were dead, lost, slaves to another kingdom, unable to get out from where we were. We didn’t do anything to deserve being saved. It wasn’t because God saw promise in us or effort from us. It was because He loved us, pure and simple. His love wasn’t even reciprocated! We did not deserve to be saved but He did it anyway. There was literally nothing on our end that made this happen.

It was all Him. I think we all get this truth.

Of course that isn’t the end of the story. As many before me have said, we weren’t just saved from something but we were saved for something. Paul talks about this a few verses later on.

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10

It is here that we start to get mixed up.

We know that our ‘works’ didn’t save us but because we have been instructed to do ‘good works’ we start to believe that from here on that it is our ‘works’ which keep us moving forward and in God’s ‘good books’.

Because we can’t fully grasp this we will forever and a day on some level believe that our behaviour has an effect on God’s love and so we will operate in such a way to try and gain more of His love and explore others to do the same. When we don’t do as well with our works we will feel guilty and undeserving of His love and when we feel we hit the mark we will feel very deserving and wonder why others are not as loved as us!

It is a tricky tension to understand, made nearly impossible by the fact that we simply can’t comprehend unconditional love. All the love we have experienced outside of God is conditional. I might think that the love I have for my wife, son, parents etc. is but while I think it’s as close as I’m going to get to grasping the concept it isn’t quite the full picture. If my wife were to start rejecting me, running me down, stealing from me, spending time with other men etc. over a long period of time I think my love would change. Would it disappear? I don’t know, but I know that the change in the conditions would affect my love for her which makes my love for her conditional by result. With a father/son love there maybe is more elements of the unconditional because that is a relationship certainly for the first years which was unaffected by choice. For many years it is a one way relationship where he doesn’t have the capacity to choose or love me, meaning my love for him has nothing to do with his reaction towards me. That said, I still don’t think that even comes close to what true unconditional love looks like.

We must remember that our ‘work’ is meant to come from a place of love and not seeking love. We work from love not for love. In each scenario the work might get done but there is a radical difference in terms of what is happening in our hearts. Just because we were saved by grace doesn’t mean that we can simply live as we want but it doesn’t mean that we grab the wheel back off Jesus either.

When we truly understand that saving love of Christ we will want to spend the rest of our days serving Him by doing the good works God has prepared for us but we will do them without seeking reward or feeling entitled to anything because of it. We won’t seek to control ourselves or others but simply live a life devoted to the one who saves and sustains us regardless of our love for Him.

I pray that I can understand more of what it means to live like this!