Ephesians 2:8-9. “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.”
These two verses are almost always memorized together. They are foundational to our faith, making it crystal clear that gaining heaven is not something we do through our own goodness. It is gained by grace, through faith, as a gift of God.
Can you imagine what it would be like in heaven if we could somehow earn going there? How full of ourselves we would be! Jesus would not be the center of our worship, since we really didn’t need Him in order to attain salvation. Not only would we boast down here about our own goodness, but we would boast up there, as well. That notion is silly, indeed, because heaven is a perfect place in which the perfect Son of God will be the focus of our worship. There will be no time or place for us to sit around boasting to each other about all that we did to attain heaven on our own.
Salvation is a gift of God, paid for with the shed blood of His Son, sealed by His resurrection from the grave. All we need to do is turn to Him in repentance for our sin and gratefully accept the gift He has so graciously provided.
Beautiful reminder of what Christ did for us!