If you put an egg in boiling water, the egg changes only after it's in the water, right? Eggs can't boil themselves -- it's impossible. No matter how hard an egg thinks or wants to boil, it just can't do it. And even then, once it's boiled, you only know it's hard-boiled when it cracks, right?
In the same way, people can't think our way to salvation. We can't earn it, either. But being saved by grace through faith changes us from the inside out. It transforms us through the work of the Holy Spirit. The process of sanctification, by which the Holy Spirit molds us into disciples, is a lifelong long process, to be completed only upon death. But in our lives, we reveal what God is doing in our lives in our responses to the world and how we interact with one another. These are, in many ways, the cracks that show what God is doing on the inside. When another comes to us in need, it's not a chance to earn our salvation, but it's where we demonstrate that we have been saved without deserving it, and we then have a chance to serve someone else, whether or not they deserve it. Our job is not to be gatekeepers of grace, but rather proclaimers of God's mercy and love, in our words and deeds. 1 John warns us not to love just in word, but also to let our deeds reveal our love.
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