The gift of God

 This Sunday's reading from Ephesians 2:1-10 is packed so study it well.

You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through 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 ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards 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 the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

As Protestants, we tend to focus on being saved by the grace of God and brought into faith, and we are not saved not by good works. We sometimes have to remind our Roman Catholic brethren that true good works will be done because of faith. 

I once knew a man named Dieu-donne Guidry whose name in Cajun French means "God's gift". While he was a great man, and to his mother he was God's gift, we know that the real gift God gives us in His loving grace.