I had the wonderful privilege of being with some sisters in Christ this weekend at a church women’s retreat. I was so blessed by this opportunity to spend some extra-focused time in God’s word. I particularly appreciated the speaker’s reminder to all of us of the gospel. I always appreciate hearing the gospel. I never tire of it. I need it every day. Every hour, really. It is so easy and human to forget the significance of what Christ has done on the cross. But it is crucial and central! We must not forget, lest we be led astray to a Christ-less gospel. May it never be!

So I am going to repeat it. For my sake and for yours.

I want to dwell for a minute on Ephesians 2. A few years ago, our family memorized this as part of Desiring God’s “Fighter Verses” program. It was life to me then. And it is life to me now, each time I read it or remember it.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

-Ephesians 2:1-10

I could go on and on. But I will stop there. This is so beautiful to me.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works… 

Ephesians 2:8-9 (emphasis mine)

Christ’s sacrifice is it. It is the reason we can live a life of freedom from the “performance trap” lie which tells us that we can earn eternal salvation. Do you trust in this truth?

I think a lot of times this is where we may be mislead. Have you been taught that salvation is Jesus’s work plus something? Like doing a better job of __{fill in the blank}__?

Do you find yourself thinking, “I know Christ died on the cross for me, and the Bible says His work is sufficient to save, but there is no way I will get into heaven unless I go to church more. Or read the Bible more. Or am 100% of the time the perfect mom.” If you feel that there is anything you can do to earn your salvation, you are believing a lie.

If there were things that we could do to be saved, we would be able to boast in ourselves. “Look at how I have earned this!” And God would not get the glory in that. The verbs pertaining to God are active. He does the things! We do not do the things. He gets the glory for all that He does! HE makes us alive with Christ. HE raises us up with Him. HE shows the immeasurable riches of His grace to us. We have the things done to us. We are passive.

Don’t believe the lie that you can do more than God has already done. It is an impossible trap. You will not find freedom. God makes us alive by His grace. When we trust in anything other than His grace to save us, we trust in a lie. God’s work is sufficient to save us. The gospel of grace is that it is just Jesus. He has already done all that needed to be done. There is nothing more that we can add to or take away from his atoning work on the cross.

This is the picture Christ gives us in the Gospel of Matthew of the yoke (Matthew 11:30). His yoke is easy. If our yoke is the burden of earning and working constantly to secure something which could be taken away and lost and ruined at any moment, that is a heavy, terrible yoke. Christ’s yoke is trusting in His grace. He has already carried the burden. Salvation is secure in Him, and His yoke is freedom from the lie that it all depends on us.