We cannot and do not earn the grace of God. It is already given to us in our baptism. There will always be plenty of people who will want you to think you have to earn it. Don't ever believe them. You couldn't earn it even if you tried. It is free.
It may be that we have lost our ability to hold a blazing coal, to move unfettered through time, to walk on water, because we have been taught that such things have to be earned; we should deserve them; we must be qualified. We are suspicious of grace. We are afraid...
How little a thing can make us happy, when we feel that we have earned it.
My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.
There we'll all be, gathered around the banquet table, not just the perfect people but also the other 99.9 percent of humanity. The prodigal son and his hard-partying buddies, the joyful father; the oldest son, and his responsible friends too, they're all there along...
The Quaker writer Richard Foster was the first to alert me, I believe, to the important distinction between power and authority. Power is claimed; authority is earned. Power is based on being in charge and having the leverage to impose punishment on others who might...
Courage is not something that you already have that makes you brave when the tough times start. Courage is what you earn when you’ve been through the tough times and you discover they aren’t so tough after all. from David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art...
If we were to accept large areas of life as pure gift, we would be forced to acknowledge that we are not in control. Were we to live as recipients rather than makers, we might feel dependent and diminished, like clients of some cosmic welfare system that demeans our...
I am also free to assume that the money I have earned is now mine. I can hoard it or use it for illicit or unscrupulous purposes or lend it at exorbitant rates. But if I take that for which I have traded my life and share it with others, I am, in a tangible way,...
The empowerment of the Spirit is not earned; it is freely given. And so with the early church at Pentecost. It was not their courage or clarity that evoked the blessing of the Spirit, for they were vulnerable and confused. The Spirit is a gift, not a possession. The...