How is your will power? Can it change your body shape? Can it change you on the inside? Can it make you into someone you are not? No? God can.
Verse 9 says: “not by works, so that no one can boast.” We can’t earn our salvation. Only God can provide it.
11 Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)— 12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility. (Ephesians 2:11-14, NIV)
God loves you. He loves me. He always has and always will. We don’t have to clean up first, pray using certain words, or follow a list of rules. He loves you right now, just as you are. But He doesn’t leave you that way.
When you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, a transformation begins that happens over time.
