Earned vs Given // Romans 6:23

There are two words I want to focus on from today’s verse: wage and free. You’ll note in reading Romans 6:23 that the wages of sin is death. A wage is what you earn for the work that you do; therefore, this means that death is what you earn for your misses and messes. A gift is something willingly given to someone without payment. This responds to your salvation. God gives you your salvation as a free gift thanks to what Jesus accomplished for everyone on the cross. This means you cannot earn your salvation since it is a free gift from God. We still tend to think our good deeds earn us God’s favor, but that isn’t right at all. The Apostle Paul taught about this as a way to guard against boasting; otherwise we are prone to put our focus on comparing and competing with others as opposed to accepting from God what we could never achieve on our own (Ephesians 2:8-9).

I hope this is helpful for you as we get closer to Easter. All we have and are is a gift from God. We can struggle with this out of some thought we must earn what we deserve. That’s not how it works with grace, however; it is all God’s gift, given freely based on what Jesus paid on your behalf. Do you believe that Jesus is God’s one and only Son and the Father raised Him from the grave? Will you confess this? Will you decide to live differently as a result? Eternity is at stake. Faith is the key. Will you accept this gift?