MikeOharaLive the intersection of faith and life

Stairway to Heaven

"God does not simply create the gift (The Gospel) and offer it to us, if we will only climb the stairway to heaven to get it; he brings it down to us, uncurls our ungrateful fingers, and places it in our hands." p. 108, The Gospel-Driven Life, Horton

To get something for nothing doesn't make sense to us.  We are wired from an early age that if we do good things, we get good things.  We carry this mindset into adulthood.

But the Gospel turns everything upside down.  The Gospel says we get what we don't deserve.  We get good (grace) even when we don't do good (sin).  This idea violates every sense of justice in me.  Good people should get good things, bad people shouldn't.

Through faith in Jesus Christ, grace is extended to us not because we are good people.  We cannot stand on our own goodness, or our righteousness.  No matter how good we are we cannot climb the stairway of heaven to access God's grace.

God lovingly stoops down to us.  Pays the price for our sin and does for us what we could not do for ourselves: makes us righteous before God.

So, we must repent of our badness, but we also must repent of our goodness.

And rather than climb the stairs, we must simply receive the gift by faith.