On our best days, we just can’t save ourselves. And on our worst, the story is the same.
When all our words are moderate and cheerful; when every deed is generous and sweet; when all our weaknesses recede, and all our strengths are trending up—we need God’s grace to save us from unholy satisfaction with ourselves.
And when we’re stuck in bitterness and hurt; when we’ve got nothing good to say about ourselves or any of our peers; when we seem chained to old, destructive habits like prisoners to a wall—we need God’s grace to save us from dejection.
The acts that save us all belong to Jesus. We offer nothing—deed or word, good or ill—that makes us more entitled to His love, or threatens His affection for the broken and the lost. “For there is no distinction,” the Word of God reminds us, “since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom 3:22).
Remember now the great unchanging, undeterred, and undeserved love of Christ. And stay in grace.