January 12 2015 Devotional Moment Connect UMC

In Today’s devotional moment John Wesley teaches us about relationship between faith, grace, and good works.  Please take a moment and prayerfully reflect on the words below.

We have nothing of which to glory.  The apostle used words to this effect in the verses preceding the text (Ephesians 2:4-8):  “God, who is rich in mercy…even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)…that…He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves…”  Of yourselves comes neither your faith nor your salvation:  “It is the gift of God”; the free, undeserved gift.  The faith through which you are saved, as well as the salvation which He attaches to it, is of His own good pleasure, His mere favor.  That you believe is one instance of His grace; that in believing you are saved is another.  Not of works, lest anyone should boast.  All our works, all our righteousness, which were before our believing, merited nothing of God but condemnation, so far removed were they from deserving faith.  Therefore, whenever faith is given, it is not of works.

Neither is salvation of the works we do when we believe; for then it is God that works in us.  Therefore, He gives a rewards for what He Himself has worked; this only commends the riches of His mercy but still leaves us nothing of which to glory.