"If Heaven Ain't a Gift, Then I Ain't Gettin' In"

That's one line from a song by one of my favorite Christian artists, Lecrae.

So just one of the many, many, many truths we spent time studying last semester is the free gift of salvation.

I have heard all my life that salvation is a free gift. We don't have to pay for it. We can't earn it. 

But...

that truth really has not sunk in until the past few months. 

Romans 4:4-5 says, "Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness."

I had never before really considered the content of those two verses. But now that I have...wow, is it powerful. Trusting in God (faith) is presented as the opposite of work in these verses. They could not be more different than each other.

How are we justified? By believing. Just by believing. By believing the Gospel. 

And when we believe, God justifies us--declares us legally righteous--at that moment. And he does it when we are yet sinners! ("...who justifies the wicked...")

We cannot stop sinning to earn our salvation.

We cannot start doing good things to earn our salvation.

We cannot make some sort of sacrifice to earn our salvation.

We cannot do anything to earn it. Because it is free. 

And if it wasn't a free gift? If it somehow would have depended on me to clean myself up and start being a righteous person in order to get to Heaven? Then as Lecrae says, "I ain't gettin in."

Isn't that amazing? The Gospel really is Good News. Praise God.

(And sidenote...interested to hear Lecrae? Click here or here. He has some pretty awesome God-honoring songs.)