"The Bible says that salvation is the gift of God. Many people-even Christians-understand this to mean that God is offering us salvation as a gift. But the Bible doesn't say that salvation is the gift from God. Rather, it says that salvation is the gift of God. God Himself is the gift. Heaven is best understood not as a place but as a description of what it is like to be with God. To be with God requires that we want to be with Him, that we accept His present of Himself. In a lovely book on faith, J. Gresham Machen writes that we become Christians not by accepting that Christ died to save others or that he died to save mankind but that he died to save me.
What an encouragement this is for us, because once we have confronted our pride we realize that we don't have to do anything to earn our heavenly reward. In fact, there is nothing that we can do to earn it. What is denied to us by effort is supplied to us through grace. So when around us we see the decay of our life, when every earthly hope of redemption has failed us, when those whom we love cannot help us, when we have tried everything and there is nothing else to try, when we have tossed our last log on the fire and all the embers have flickered out, it is at this point that God's hand reaches out to us, steady and sure. All we have to do is take it. This is the uniqueness of the Christian message."
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