Tonight I experimented with a new recipe for dinner that nobody really liked. I could tell the family didn't want to hurt my feelings because they knew I had spent some time on it but they were less than enthusiastic, and I was disappointed.

 

Sometimes we can put an awful lot of effort into something and we have to ask why we are doing it?

 

I think it can be a bit like that with our relationship with God at times, sometimes we try just a bit too hard to prove ourselves worthy , to earn his approval and actually we don't need to because God gives us his love freely. One of the wonders of Christianity that I struggle to accept is exactly that, that this love is undeserved and unearned , it just is, and we just have to accept it. That is grace!

 

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Ephesians 2 vs 8-10