The following post is an excerpt from Hope to Win the War, by Jacob Way.

One of the lies that enslaves us to pornography is believing that God will only help us fight temptation if we’ve earned it. Believing this lie causes us to never pray or ask Him to intervene, because we are never good enough. We never meet the standard we think God has for us in order to ask Him for help. In order to dismantle the lie of earning God’s help, the first step is returning to basics. We must remember the fundamentals of our faith.

Let’s start at the beginning. Did we do something to make God notice us? Did we cause Him to choose us? Did we earn God’s favor? No! Paul stated in Ephesians 1 that God chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love, He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:4-5). You weren’t born and then did some cool things to get God’s attention. It is not like you had great stats in high school, so God recruited you to play sports in college. No, God chose you before He made you. God chose you before He even made the world.

Why did He choose you? Was it what you can do for Him or your potential contributions to the kingdom? No, not at all. It was love. Was it because you loved Him? No, you weren’t made yet. It was only His love for you.

So, if you didn’t earn His attention, do you have to get all A’s in the Christian life to keep His attention? Nope. Paul explains in Ephesians 1:6 that what accompanies God’s love for us is His “glorious grace, which he has freely given us.” His grace has no strings attached. It is unconditional. You don’t have to perform well to not get cut from the team. You are a starter, not based on your ability but on God’s compassion for you.

What about our faith? Don’t we earn that? No. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Notice that it isn’t just God’s grace that is a gift to us; even our faith is a gift. The faith you have is not from yourself. You did not create it, and you do not primarily maintain it. It’s from God and preserved by Him. We can’t brag about our faith because even that is an act of grace to us. He gives us the ability to love Him and gives us the gift of faith and reconciliation with Him.

It is all a gift. If God’s attention, His love, His grace, and our faith are all gifts, what did you earn? What are you worried about losing?

The riches of God’s gifts flow from His character of love and mercy. We could never earn or deserve all that God gives us. He just gives them to us because He loves us. This is the fundamental starting point and continual state of our relationship with Christ. Therefore, the foundation of our whole existence and identity is rooted in God’s unmerited grace to us.