God saved you by his Grace when you believed. ~ Ephesians 2:8 (NLT)

你 们 得 救 是 本 乎 恩 ， 也 因 着 信 ；~ 以 弗 所 書 2:8 (CUVS)

Everyone likes to get gifts. Especially when it isn’t your birthday, or Christmas, or Valentine’s Day, and someone gives you something for no reason at all, except that they love you. In the picture, the girl’s Dad has just gotten a gift. He looks pretty happy. The girl looks happy too, because it is also fun to give someone a gift.

Our verse today says that God “saved” us. This means that he forgave all of the things we do that we shouldn’t, so we don’t have to be punished for them. He did this when we believed in Jesus, his son, who took our punishment for us when he died on the cross.

It also says that God saved us by his “grace”. The word “grace” in the Bible means giving love and kindness to someone just because you want to, not because they deserve it in any way. That’s how God loves us. We don’t have to be special or extra good or do anything to make him love us. He just does. Always. Because he wants to.

That sounds like God is giving us a gift, doesn’t it? Two gifts: his love and his “salvation” (a big word that means he saved us). And if we look at the next part of this verse, we see another G word that tells us this is exactly what it means! Here it is:

“God saved you by his Grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a Gift from God.” And that is something to be thankful for!

Our Father, thank you that you always love us, no matter what. Thank you Jesus, for loving us enough to be punished in our place for all the bad things we have done and will do. Thank you for the gift of saving us. Help us believe in you always. Amen.

Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash