Grace or Works

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

Our 14-year-old daughter, Brenda* came home from school, marched straight up to us and blurted out, “You’ll never guess what we talked about in class today.” She seemed excited and agitated at the same time.

“What did you talk about?” I said, looking up from the computer where I had been checking email. Her mom put down her work as well. Brenda goes to a Catholic school in our city. She has Catholic, Muslim, Buddhist, Charismatic, and Protestant students in her class.

“Someone started talking how you must work to get to heaven, and everyone agreed but me,” she said. Brenda has 43 classmates and one teacher. “I told them that our sin is too great to ever do enough work to pay for it. And, besides, if we could pay for our own sins then Jesus would never have had to come, live and die. Dad, you should have seen them when I said that their mouths just dropped open!”

The debrief session went on for some time. Brenda is fairly fluent in the market language of the local dialect, but she felt the frustration of the language barrier when it came to speaking in more formal forms, which is the only polite way to speak in the presence of her teacher. I was so proud of her. Brenda shared the message of God’s grace, which many of her classmates had never heard before.

“Mom,” Brenda continued. “I started to cry in class.” She paused and then continued, “They were all so wrong and I knew it. I was so sad for them.”

I had heard before that missionary kids (MKs) are also kid missionaries. As Brenda shared I could see the passion of wanting to share truth in her eyes, coupled with the pain of being limited by language and culture barriers. I knew that pain all too well.

Apparently this discussion went on in class for over an hour. Brenda was on one side sharing the grace of Christ and the 44 on the other side were insisting on works. Yes, I’m very proud of my eldest daughter!

*Name changed for security reasons. Story was shared by a Last Frontier Missionary serving in the Pacific Rim.

Pray that:

Brenda will have more opportunities to share with her friends.

Her friends will consider what she has already said about grace and seek her out for more conversation.

The practice of sharing her faith will mature Brenda and plant a burden for the lost and zeal for the gospel in her heart.

Pacific Rim is a region of the International Mission Board, SBC.