{"id":40023,"date":"2026-04-21T22:00:59","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T05:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?p=40023"},"modified":"2026-04-20T15:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T22:45:09","slug":"26-0422","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/26-0422\/","title":{"rendered":"Salvation is Not Earned"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: right;\">by Max Lucado<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-40025 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/260422_1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/260422_1.jpg 600w, https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/260422_1-300x150.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I became a Christian about the same time I became a Boy Scout, and I made the assumption that God grades like the Boy Scouts do: on a merit system. Good scouts move up. Good people go to heaven.<\/p>\n<p>So, I resolved to amass of multitude of spiritual badges. I worked toward the day when God, amid falling confetti and dancing cherubim, would drape my badge-laden sash across my chest and welcome me into his eternal kingdom, where I would humbly display my badges for eternity.<\/p>\n<p>But some thorny questions surfaced. How many badges does he require? How good is good?\u00a0 And then I was corrected. Ephesians 2:8 (NASB) says, \u201c<strong>For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God<\/strong>.\u201d Unearned. A gift. Our merits merit nothing. So let grace happen, for Heaven\u2019s sake.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-39891\" src=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/unnamed-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"196\" height=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Read more\u00a0<a title=\"Grace: More Than We Deserve, Greater Than We Imagine\" href=\"https:\/\/maxlucado.us2.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=bed511e434184985961d50fcb&amp;id=6a2f9c636d&amp;e=0716428f80\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/maxlucado.us2.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u%3Dbed511e434184985961d50fcb%26id%3D6a2f9c636d%26e%3D0716428f80&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1775798206909000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1zMo3KJB1WgbHUeXiXIIkl\"><em>Grace: More Than We Deserve, Greater Than We Imagine<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I became a Christian about the same time I became a Boy Scout, and I made the assumption that God grades like the Boy Scouts do: on a merit system. Good scouts move up. Good people go to heaven.<\/p>\n<p>So, I resolved to amass of multitude of spiritual badges. I worked toward the day when God, amid falling confetti and dancing cherubim, would drape my badge-laden sash across my chest and welcome me into his eternal kingdom, where I would humbly display my badges for eternity.<\/p>\n<p>But some thorny questions surfaced. How many badges does he require? How good is good?  And then I was corrected. Ephesians 2:8 (NASB) says, \u201cFor by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.\u201d Unearned. A gift. Our merits merit nothing. So let grace happen, for Heaven\u2019s sake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40025,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-upwords"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40023"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40026,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40023\/revisions\/40026"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}