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Daily Devotionals
John Gossner's Treasury
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast. Ephesians 2:8-9.
Nothing is easier than to be saved. Yet salvation is something which the fewest persons succeed in obtaining. When a person who sits in prison because of debt asks, How am I to pay my debt and be set at liberty? and one says to him. The person to whom you owe the money, is a very kind person; make your want known to him; give him good words; ask him to forgive you all your debt, and he will do so; he will set you at liberty and give you great wealth besides; then the prisoner readily believes it. He will not only willingly do what he has to do, but he will also say. Nothing else? That is nothing. That is easy for me to do. When he has done so and has become free and rich, he will not think in such an insane manner as this, I have obtained my liberty by my own merit; but he will all the days of his life confess. Oh, that kind person has from pure grace and for nothing forgiven me all that I owed him and besides overwhelmed me with gifts. How am I sufficiently to thank him? Thus men think and act in regard to temporal things; but in regard to spiritual things, to their debt of sin, and to Christ, they know not what to do. That which is the easiest in the world becomes the most difficult, and if they have done it, they regard it as the greatest work and merit, as if they themselves had earned their salvation. Now Paul does not say in the above words that one has nothing to do in order to be saved, but only that one, after being saved, must not ascribe salvation to one’s own works and one’s own activity. He must not glory in it as something he has earned by his own works. You must certainly do all that you can by the aid of preparatory grace: weep, pray, wait, struggle, in short, you must do all that which the blessed Spirit, who leads you to repentance and faith, teaches you to do. But when you have done all, you must regard it as so small a matter and you must praise yourself so little for it as if you had done nothing whatever, and regard salvation as bestowed upon you, not because of your works, but for nothing and of grace; for that which you have done is His work in you. In this way all is His and nothing is left for you but grace.
Thy grace first made me feel my sin,
It taught me to believe;
Then, in believing, peace I found.
And now I live, I live.
