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1Many worldwide religions are all about the good things you do, how nice you are during your life or the special places that you visit. Many people believe that these things can get you ‘brownie points’ to help decide if you will go to heaven. But that’s a hard way to live never knowing if you have done enough work or are nice enough to people to get there. Life can become miserable when you worry about whether or not your breaking a rule or falling short.

However, Christianity isn’t like that at all. It 100% isn’t about a list of things to do or not do to earn these ‘brownie points’. The reason Christians do good things isn’t so they get something special from God. Christians already have special favour with God! Someone else did the work for them. Christians are already certain of going to heaven through something called grace.

Grace means getting something we don’t deserve. We don’t deserve to go to heaven because of the selfish things we do and think. But Jesus has taken what we do deserve, punishment and death, so that we can get we don’t deserve: heaven.

So when Christians do good things and are nice to people, it’s because they are thankful for what God has done and want to please Him (it’s not because they are trying to work their way into heaven).

Ephesians 2:8-9: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.

— Kevin, an Our Daily Bread reader

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