All religions of the world teach that you need to earn God’s approval. Christianity flips this on it’s head. The Christian can’t earn their way into becoming a Christian. Everything else in life we need to work for, but this is how you know man did not come up with the concept of salvation as a free gift. We would have never thought of such a thing! It seems counter-intuitive to us, but God says: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” Isaiah 55:8. In fact, when people see “FREE” these days they are inclined to think its a trick or that the product is somehow inferior, but that’s not how God works. He knows that if we could earn it we would get prideful and take credit for it. Scripture tells us:  “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9

Christianity says you don’t need to reach up to God and try to earn his approval. Instead, God came down as a man to rescue you–something you played no part in.

All we need to do is receive this free gift of eternal life. This can be done through a simple prayer where you repent of your sins and accept His free gift of eternal life–trusting that his death and resurrection are enough to get you into heaven. You then make Jesus the Lord, the center of you life.

This gets you “born-again” into God’s family. You become a new creation and God gives you a new heart and you are more inclined to want to please God. He says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” Eze 36:26 Obeying some rules or regulations won’t achieve salvation or earn his approval. Instead, the Bible says the law will be written on your heart (see Romans 2:15). And pleasing God becomes your natural inclination the more you are filled with the Holy Spirit. The “work” that you end up doing is just the fruit of this gift of salvation. It is not what gets you saved.

This is what the Bible says about trying to work your way into eternity and God’s approval: “However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.” Did you see that? Your faith gets Jesus’ righteousness credited to your account not your work. God then no longer sees you as guilty. Instead he sees the sacrifice of His son as payment for your sins. Christians say that His blood covers their sins. And indeed it does! 1 John 1:7 says it this way:  “blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”

The only thing you can do is to believe in Him–believe who he says He is and what he has done for you. When asked “what must we do to do the works God requires?”, Jesus responds by saying “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent” Romans 6:28-29. He’s talking about Himself here!

So if you are exhausted from trying to win approval when God will accept you on account of His son, repent and believe in Jesus! If you’re tired of trying to keep up appearances, you can find rest in Jesus. You can get rid of that old self that you can’t seem to manage, and God will give you a new life with new desires. You won’t have conjure up the will to want do the right things, you will be more inclined to want to please God rather than your flesh.