I became a Christian about the same time I became a Boy Scout, and I made the assumption that God grades like the Boy Scouts do: on a merit system. Good scouts move up. Good people go to heaven.
So, I resolved to amass of multitude of spiritual badges. I worked toward the day when God, amid falling confetti and dancing cherubim, would drape my badge-laden sash across my chest and welcome me into his eternal kingdom, where I would humbly display my badges for eternity.
But some thorny questions surfaced. How many badges does he require? How good is good? And then I was corrected. Ephesians 2:8 (NASB) says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” Unearned. A gift. Our merits merit nothing. So let grace happen, for Heaven’s sake.
