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The Stench of Hypocrisy

Saying One Thing But Doing Another Should Never Be Known Among Christians

Hypocrisy is the height of deceitfulness. Act by act, it layers the heart with calluses that will eventually prevent the Holy Spirit from doing his work: convicting the conscience of sin. It lures gullible followers into the same destructive patterns of behavior that are incongruent with beliefs. But perhaps worst of all, it hardens those who are turned off by the religious hypocrisy they witness among God’s so-called people from ever wanting to have anything to do with Jesus Christ.

The Journey: Matthew 23:2-3

The teachers of religious law and the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of Moses. So practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don’t follow their example. For they don’t practice what they teach.

Let’s be perfectly clear about this: Sin is sin, and no matter what level of sin it is, it is always offensive to a holy God. Sin corrupts, it corrodes the soul, it prevents the blessings of God and if not dealt with, it will cause the gift of eternal life to be forfeited.

Having said that, have you noticed how Jesus seems to rail against one particular sin more than others? Jesus doesn’t’ beat up on prostitutes and thieves and good old run of the mill garden variety sinners like he does religious hypocrites. Just read through this chapter and you will see what I mean.

Hypocrisy is intolerable to God but religious hypocrisy is especially repugnant. It is the worst indictment the Divine could lay against you. To say one thing and to do another, to believe one way and live a different way, and to teach people one thing then personally practice another in the name of Christ will arouse God’s disdain like no other.

Why? Hypocrisy is the height of deceitfulness. It layers the heart, act by act, with calluses that will eventually prevent the Holy Spirit from doing his work: convicting the conscience of sin. It lures gullible followers into the same destructive patterns of behavior that are incongruent with beliefs. But perhaps worst of all, it hardens those who are turned off by the religious hypocrisy they witness among God’s so-called people from ever wanting to have anything to do with Jesus Christ.

How many times have you heard an angry, hardened unbeliever say, “If that’s what Christianity is all about, I want nothing to do with it!”? How sad! It may be that the hypocrisy they are reacting to will close the door of their heart for all eternity to God’s offer of salvation.

The challenge with hypocrisy is that is so hard to spot in your own life. Again, it is so effectively evil because of its power of deception and the hardening of the heart that it wreaks. However, if you are willing to lie very still on the Great Surgeon’s table and allow the Holy Spirit to apply the scalpel to your heart, I am confident that he will expose and excise any hypocrisy that has taken up residence.

Are you courageous enough to allow him to do some spiritual surgery on you today?

A Simple Prayer To Be More Like Jesus:

God, I open my heart to the surgery of the Holy Spirit today. Expose any hidden and unknown sin and remove anything that could hinder or destroy my relationship with you. And please, never let my inconsistent behavior cause another to turn away from you.
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The One Important Thing

Just Love God Fully, Then Do What You Want Freely

Jesus said the only truly important thing you need to worry about in life is this: Just love God fully and love people as yourself. Do that, and you will have fulfilled the whole law of God and found the best and most satisfying use your life.

The Journey: Matthew 22:33

When the crowds heard him, they were astounded at his teaching.

Like the old E.F. Hutton commercial, when Jesus spoke, people listened. They were often left with the same reaction that Matthew 22:22 & 33 recorded: They were mesmerized. There was just something about this rabbi they has never encountered before among Israel’s many notable religious teachers.

What was it that the crowds were so amazed and astonished at whenever they heard Jesus teach? Was it his winsome personality and his engaging speaking ability that awed them? For sure, Jesus’ charisma and confidence were of a caliber that would impress even the most discriminating audience. Was it the miracles that often attended his exposition of the scripture? Certainly that would have impressed the people listening, since no other religious authority had been able to pull off signs and wonders in their sessions.

To be sure, those were factors in the public’s attraction to Jesus, but what really touched them at the core was how Jesus brought the long-awaited Kingdom of God easily within their grasp. Furthermore, the incredible profundity of the absolute simplicity of Jesus’ summary of the entire law of God into two simple, doable commands was music to their ears:

‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40)

Amazingly, the people in Jesus’ day had never heard God’s Word explained that way before. Instead, they had been led to believe that the law of God was comprised of a list of rules and regulations that had to be religiously followed in exacting detail in order for anyone to be pleasing to God. Unfortunately, this list of rules had become an ever-expanding playbook, and the goalpost of obedience kept getting moved further and further away from the worshiper’s ability to score.

But then Jesus came along and said that the entire law of God, rather than being a complex list of rules and unending regulations, could be simply obeyed by one important thing: Love for God! Loving God—to joyfully reverence him, to gratefully obey him, to gladly concern yourself with the things that concern him, and to authenticate that love for God by treating other people as you, yourself, expect to be treated—that was what it meant to fulfill the entire law of God!

That, Jesus said, was the whole law, the greatest obligation, the best and most satisfying use of life; that was the only thing people really needed to worry about; that was the one important thing in life that they needed to get right: Simply love the Lord God with all of your heart! Really, what Jesus was saying was summed up quite nicely a few centuries later by St. Augustine, who purportedly put it this way,

Love God, and do what you want.

Come to think of it, the complete profundity of the absolute simplicity of that one important thing amazes and astonishes me, too. Count me in with the crowd of the impressed!

A Simple Prayer To Be More Like Jesus:

God, give me grace to love you more!
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The Free And Easy Plan

We Don’t Get To Tell God How We Are Going To Get Into His Heaven

Let’s be very clear about this: God is not willing that any should perish; He desires that all should come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9) But we don’t get to tell God how we are going to get into his heaven. We can only get there on his terms: Complete and total surrender to Jesus Christ as both Savior and Lord.

The Journey: Matthew 22:14

For many are called, but few are chosen.

Have you ever noticed that when a popular public figure dies—a successful movie star, a music icon, a popular athlete or a charismatic politician–adoring fans assume that no matter what kind of life they led (and in some cases, what kind of perversity contributed to their death), these celebrities get a free and easy pass to heaven. How often have you heard a heartbroken fan trying to find some comfort in the death of the one they idolized say something like this: “I’ll sure miss ’so and so’, but I know they’re in a much better place. I’ll bet they’re smiling down on us right now.”

Of course, death is tragic, whether it’s a celebrity or not. And of course, God loves famous people just as he loves not so famous people, and has made room for all in his eternal kingdom. But no one gets a free and easy pass to heaven—unless, that is, they go through Jesus. He is the only free and easy way to the Father. (John 14:6)

“Many are called, but few are chosen.” Those sobering words appear at the very end of the Parable of the Banquet, and if you read that entire parable (Matthew 22:1-14), you find that Jesus is not painting the picture of a narrow, exclusive God. Quite the opposite—he invites pretty much everybody to the party.

The problem is, most reject the invitation. They want to come to it when they are good and ready. They don’t want to change into proper banquet attire. In the words of that famous theologian Frank Sinatra, the vast majority of people want to do it “my way.” But it doesn’t work that way. Only a few get chosen, not because of the exclusivity of God, but because of the resistance of those who demand entrance into the banquet on their terms.

Let’s be very clear about this: God is not willing that any should perish; He desires that all should come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9) But we don’t get to tell God how we are going to get into his heaven. We can only get there on his terms.

And his terms (not mine, but his) are very clear: Complete and total surrender to Jesus Christ as Savior AND Lord. We must receive him as the only one who can save us from our sins, because he was the one and only perfect sacrifice for our sins. And we must crown him as the Lord and Ruler of our lives–which means every dimension of our being, not just selective parts. It is on those terms that we are given the free and easy pass to heaven.

Yes, many get invited, but only the few who come on God’s terms will get in on the party that will never end.

Have you fully surrendered your life to God and asked him to give you eternal life on Jesus’ free and easy grace plan? If not, why not do that right now. Just ask, admit your sin, and accept Jesus as Savior and Lord of your life.

A Simple Prayer To Be More Like Jesus:

God, by your grace, through Jesus’ substitutionary death on the cross for my sin, I receive your gift of eternal life. I confess my sin, I repent of my rebellion, I receive Jesus as Savior and Lord, and by your Holy Spirit’s help, as a debt of gratitude, I offer my whole life to you as a living sacrifice.
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Christ-unlikeness

Don’t Be One Who Says, “I Will Go” But Never Does

Jesus’s Parable of the Vineyard is about the invitation to enter God’s will. And the will of the Father is for people to be conformed to the image of Christ. That’s the work of God in the world today: transforming your heart and mine into the likeness of Jesus. And that work is most needed precisely in the our where we are most unlike Christ. Where is that for you? Don’t neglect the Father’s urgent invitation to join him in his work there.

The Journey: Matthew 21:28-31

Jesus said to the religious leaders, “But what do you think about this? A man with two sons told the older boy, ‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’ The son answered, ‘No, I won’t go,’ but later he changed his mind and went anyway. Then the father told the other son, ‘You go,’ and he said, ‘Yes, sir, I will.’ But he didn’t go. Which of the two obeyed his father?”

Jesus was talking to priests and elders about submitting to the work of God, but they were resisting, while unlikely tax collectors and prostitutes were embracing it. The Jewish leaders were unwilling to open their hearts to God, and they were jealous of Jesus—the miracles he was performing, the crowds he was garnering, the authority with which he was preaching—so much so, that a few days later, they would have him crucified.

Jesus knew all of this, so to expose their hardness of heart and yet one more time, gave them a chance to respond to the work of God, he told them a parable about two sons—one who was a problem at breakfast but a delight at dinner, and one who was compliant at breakfast but absent at supper.

Then Jesus makes a very clear application in verse 31. He asked which of the two sons did the will of his Father: The one who looked the right way and said the right things, but never really changed, or the one who seemed to be so way off track but at the end of the day responded to the Father’s will?

What Jesus was saying to the priest and leaders, and to you and me by extension, was that what matters is where you are when suppertime comes. You see, this parable isn’t about your intentions at breakfast, it’s about your actions at dinner. This is a supper story, not a breakfast parable. Jesus is talking about the invitation to enter God’s vineyard, which is a metaphorical way of talking about responding to the will of the Father. And the will of the Father is for people to be conformed to the image of Christ. That’s the work of God in the world today: Transforming your heart and mine into the likeness of Jesus.

What about you—are you a “breakfast boy” or are you a “suppertime son”? If you were to honestly apply this to your own life, are you saying “yes” to the vineyard—the work of God in your life—but never really following through on it? Or are you, even if you have so very far to go in the process of transformation, submitting your life to the Lord’s vineyard? In what ways are you looking more like Christ and in what areas do you still need to get into God’s vineyard?

Where are you unlike Christ? That’s where the work of the vineyard needs to take place as a priority. Robert Mulholland pointedly says, “The process of being conformed to the image of Christ, doing the will of the father, takes place primarily at the point of our unlikeness to Christ’s image.” Most of us have areas that need to be brought into the vineyard: our temper, our tongue, our thought life, our attitude…pieces of our lives that still don’t look like Jesus. We’ve set around the breakfast table and said, “you know, I better get into the vineyard in that area,” but we never really seem to make it there.

Changing to the image of Christ usually involves physical practices called spiritual disciplines—things we must do consistently over time that allows us to take on the character of Christ. If the Holy Spirit is prompting you say yes to God’s vineyard today, what does that mean? What action do you need to take? What spiritual practices do you need to begin? Write down that spiritual discipline you need to engage, share it with a friend, and get into the vineyard. Don’t be one who says, “I will go” but never gets there.

Jesus is inviting us to get into the vineyard, no matter what stage we’re at in the game, so that when suppertime comes, you and I will have submitted to what the Father wanted to do in our lives. There is a sense of urgency to this story; dinner is just about ready! So push back from the breakfast table and get into the transforming work of the Holy Spirit in those areas where you don’t look like Jesus?

A Simple Prayer To Be More Like Jesus:

God, my life is yours. My desire is that through me—body, emotions, intellect, relationship, abilities—I would honor you with every last ounce of my being. Take me over and make me into the image of your Son.
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Good and Angry

Don’t Be Mistaken, Jesus Was No Pushover

B.B. Warfield wrote, “A man who cannot be angry, cannot be merciful.” The person who cannot be angry at things which thwart God’s purposes and God’s love toward people is living too far away from his fellow men ever to feel anything positive towards them. Perhaps it’s time, like Jesus, to stay good but get angry over the things that prevent the goodness of God from reaching people.

The Journey: Matthew 21:12-13

Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out all the people buying and selling animals for sacrifice. He knocked over the tables of the moneychangers and the chairs of those selling doves. He said to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves!”

Jesus was angry—so much so that he literally tossed a few people out of the church! Now that image may totally blow the picture you have of the Lord as the “Gentle Shepherd”. I hope so! There were times that Jesus was good and angry—and not to be so would have been un-God like.

To be sure, Jesus loved people, and that love especially came through in his compassion for the poor, widows and orphans, the sick and infirmed, and those who were held captive to sin by Satan. He was a man of love and peace who called people to a lifestyle of love and peace. But Jesus was no pushover. He had a large capacity for anger—righteous indignation—as we see here in this encounter with the moneychangers at the temple. Jesus didn’t go around picking fights, but when he saw injustice, it really ticked him off.

What pushed his button in particular was seeing how religious authorities would turn what should have been the worship of God into a way to manipulate people for their own purposes. It bothered him a great deal when spiritual directors stood in the way of the kindness of God reaching people in need, and when religious systems abused and enslaved people instead of ushering them into the abundance of God.

J. I. Packer, in his book, Your Father Loves You, writes of the many times Jesus’ anger flared at this sort of thing:

Jesus went into the synagogue on the Sabbath and saw a man with a crippled hand. He knew that the Pharisees were watching to see what he would do, and he felt angry that they were only out to put him in the wrong. They did not care a scrap for the handicapped man, nor did they want to see the power and love of God brought to bear on him. There were other instances where Jesus showed anger or sternness. He “sternly charged” the leper whom he had healed not to tell anyone about it (Mark 1:43) because he foresaw the problems of being pursued by a huge crowd of thoughtless people who were interested only in seeing miracles and not in his teaching. But the leper disobeyed and so made things very hard for Jesus. Jesus showed anger again when the disciples tried to send away the mothers and their children (Mark 10:13-16). He was indignant and distressed at the way the disciples were thwarting his loving purposes and giving the impression that he did not have time for ordinary people. He showed anger once more when he drove “out those who sold and those who bought in the temple” (Mark 11:15-17). God’s house of prayer was being made into a den of thieves and God was not being glorified—hence Jesus’ angry words and deeds. Commenting on this, Warfield wrote: “A man who cannot be angry, cannot be merciful.” The person who cannot be angry at things which thwart God’s purposes and God’s love toward people is living too far away from his fellow men ever to feel anything positive towards them. Finally, at Lazarus’ grave Jesus showed not just sympathy and deep distress for the mourners (John 11:33-35), but also a sense of angry outrage at the monstrosity of death in God’s world. This is the meaning of “deeply moved” in John 11:38.

Any form of spiritual manipulation, control, abuse or neglect that prevents the goodness of God from reaching people, no matter what form it takes, or who is perpetrating it, doesn’t make Jesus very happy. Not then…and not now.

Religious leaders, televangelists, youth directors, or anyone who has spiritual influence over others, and use that influence for their own financial gain, to garner name recognition, for sexual gratification, to feed their own hunger for power, or who deliberately prevent God’s abundance from reaching his children, will sooner or later have to stand before a righteous Jesus. And as we just saw, the real Jesus is perfectly capable of anger. One day there will be an accounting for the mismanagement of spiritual authority—and it won’t be pretty.

Jesus, the Gentle Shepherd, the Prince of Peace, got good and angry over a few things. Maybe it is high time Christ followers got a little fed up with sin as well.

So if it is called for, go ahead and get angry. Just make sure you are good—literally—and angry.

A Simple Prayer To Be More Like Jesus:

God, teach me to be angry at the things which anger you, but stay good, as you always are. Touch my heart with that which touches your heart..
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Stooping To Greatness

The Apostle Paul taught that if we have grasped the love of God and the grace of our Lord Jesus and the work of the Spirit in the least, then we will understand that at the very least, our duty is to think like Jesus thought, to serve like Jesus served, and to live as Jesus would if he were living in our place. And since Jesus came to serve, not to be served, then to give his life away, that means our calling is to likewise give ourselves away by serving others.

The Journey: Matthew 20:26-28

But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Servanthood. Now that’s not something you hear every day from the CEO of a major corporation. It is not likely you will hear your boss say that the way to the top is by humbling yourself and giving your life as the servant of all. You will probably get a half dozen slick promotional pieces in the mail this week inviting you to a spendy leadership conference, but my guess is that not a single one will be promoting servanthood as the key feature.

Yet that is the upside-down logic of the Kingdom of God. Jesus said the surest way to greatness is by way of descent—you’ve got to lower yourself into it. And that’s not something Jesus just preached; it’s what he practiced. Serving was the core value of his very existence and the primary purpose of his coming, according to Matthew 20:28,

For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Jesus understood, modeled and taught that greatness, as well as a whole host of other Kingdom values, came only by authentic humility and willing servanthood. C.S. Lewis described it this way: “Jesus descends to re-ascend.” Paul, in Philippians 2:5-11, said,

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Paul says the secret to spiritual authenticity and Christian greatness is to adopt the attitude of Jesus; to make his mindset our mindset. Verse 5 says, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus…” What was that mindset? Verse 7 says Jesus “made himself nothing.” Literally, when he left heaven and was born into humanity, he emptied himself.

Emptied himself of what? Not of his Divine identity, of course. Jesus the man was always God. Take his deity away and our faith is no more useful than any other religion. What Jesus set aside was his divine prerogatives. He lowered himself to human status. And if that weren’t low enough, he descended further into the role of servant to all mankind. Really, the term “servant” is too clean! He literally became a bond-slave: one without rights or privileges of his own.

This amazing Jesus who crafted the solar systems with ease, stooped to learn a trade in his father’s carpentry shop. The Sovereign Lord whom all creation worships donned a servant’s towel, stooping to wash the feet of those who should have washed his. This incredible Jesus, ruler of all mankind, stooped to the humiliation of the cross to pay for sins that should have nailed you and me there! He emptied himself of his Divine prerogatives to become a slave to redeem us from our slavery to sin and death.

So Paul says that if we have grasped the love of God and the grace of our Lord Jesus and the work of the Spirit in the least, then we will understand that at the very least, our duty is to think like Jesus thought, to serve like Jesus served, and to live as Jesus would if he were living in our place.

Jesus came to serve, not to be served, and to give his life away. That is your call, too.

It is said that a western tourist visiting India observed Mother Teresa stoop down and hold a dying leper in her arms. The tourist disgustedly commented, “I wouldn’t do that for a million dollars!”

Mother Teresa looked up at the visitor and said, “Neither would I.”

That kind of stooping servanthood is eternally celebrated by heaven and is the pathway to greatness in God’s Kingdom.

I hope you will make the descent into greatness this week!

Happy stooping!

A Simple Prayer To Be More Like Jesus:

God, make me like your Son. He was a servant, so make me one, too. Lord I am willing. Do what you must do, to make me like Jesus—the servant of all.
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The Whole Enchilada

Aren’t You Glad For 11th Hour Grace

Who gets to be in God’s kingdom? Everyone—anyone who accepts Jesus’ offer, that’s who! That includes all kinds of sinful people who took Jesus up on this offer: prostitutes, tax collectors and even Gentiles. They came in at the 11th hour and are still getting the whole enchilada. That’s your story, too. You got the whole grace enchilada when you didn’t even deserve a nibble of the beans and rice—so be grateful. Be very grateful!

The Journey: Matthew 20:16

Jesus said, “So those who are last now will be first then, and those who are first will be last.”

On its face, the Parable of the Vineyard in Matthew 20:1-16 has to be one of the most unfair stories in the Bible. Come on—people who come to work just before quitting time and get paid the same as those who’ve put in a full day! You’ve to be kidding! Since Jesus told parables to illustrate the Kingdom of God, how in the world does this story represent the Father’s righteous rule?

In this story, a landowner goes to the marketplace to hire temps at the beginning of the work day—a 12-hour day that began at 6:00 AM—and contracts with the most suitable looking workers: a day’s work for a day’s wage—one denarius. Then, still needing help, he goes back at 9:00 AM, again at noon and at 3:00 PM to get more workers. Each additional time, however, there is no contract; he just says he’ll pay them whatever is right. Finally, at the 11th hour—at 5:00 PM—he goes back and sees a few more workers hanging around. Now you’ve got to ask why haven’t they been hired yet…and how come they’re still here? Waiting to get hired with one hour left in the day is kind of like showing up at a Pumpkin Patch the day after Halloween looking for work. Obviously, these guys are not your Stanford MBA types; they’re not the most employable people at the temp service. But help is needed, so they’re hired.

Then the owner blows them all away at the end of the workday by paying all the workers the same: One denarius—a full days wage! Imagine the surprise of the 11th hour workers when they realize they’ve just been paid the same as the all-day guys. I can imagine one of them saying, “We didn’t really deserve this. Let’s get out of here before the payroll people realize their mistake and ask for the money back.” And the all-day workers—man, are they mad at the ridiculous generosity of the owner!

So what is Jesus getting at in this parable? To begin with, understand that this is not a story about how corporations should draft compensation policy, so don’t get hung up over that. As a general rule, people who work 12 hours should get paid more than people who work 1 hour. Operate your HR department like this landowner and you’ll soon be out of business.

What Jesus is doing here is picturing the kingdom for us: Undeserving, unlikely desperate people trusting in the generosity of God to include them in his vineyard. The vineyard is a metaphor about coming into God’s kingdom, through Jesus. Who gets to be in God’s kingdom? Everyone—anyone who accepts Jesus’ offer, that’s who! And all kinds of sinful people are taking Jesus up on this offer: Prostitutes, tax collectors and even Gentiles. They’re coming in at the 11th hour and still getting the whole denarius.

But the pious Jews who’ve been in the vineyard all day long aren’t happy about this. They can’t grasp this thing called grace that Jesus is revealing; it’s nothing less than scandalous to them.

Now here is one of the things I’d like for you to consider in this story: You are an 11th hour person—me, too—but the longer we’re in the kingdom, the more we become like the all-day people. Every time someone new comes into the vineyard, they become the 11th hour worker and we move back down the line to 9th hour workers, to noon people, to the 9 AM crowd, until finally, we are sitting with the all-day folks. And the real danger we face is taking on the attitude of these all-day workers.

As we move along in our walk with Jesus, we are either moving into what we might call performance-based Christianity, or we’re moving toward grace-based faith. Performance-based people believe they deserve a full day’s pay based on what they do. They act as if God is getting a good deal in getting them; that he couldn’t run his vineyard without them. But grace-based believers understand they did nothing except to show up and accept God’s offer. Their entire relationship with God is based on trust in his ridiculous generosity and gracious character.

Don’t slide into an all-day spirit. Rather—perhaps you should do this on a regular basis—simply recount the gracious goodness of God that invited you into his vineyard when you did nothing to deserve it at all. Take a moment to absorb what Philip Yancey wrote so insightfully about this in his book, What’s So Amazing About Grace:

Many Christians who study this parable identify with the employees who put in a full day’s work rather than with the add-ons at the end of the day. We like to think of ourselves as responsible workers, and the employer’s strange behavior baffles us as it did the original hearers. But we risk missing the story’s point: that God dispenses gifts, not wages. None of us gets paid according to merit like these early workers, none of us, for none of us comes close to satisfying God’s requirement for a perfect life. If paid on the basis of merit, we would all end up in hell.

God dispenses gifts, not wages! Good point—none of us gets paid according to merit.

And aren’t you glad for that! Listen, friend, you got the whole grace enchilada when you didn’t even deserve a nibble of the beans and rice—so be grateful. Be very grateful!

A Simple Prayer To Be More Like Jesus:

God, thank you for saving me. I didn’t deserve it, but by your grace you brought me your eternal kingdom and paid me a full wage. For that, I will be eternally grateful.