Andrew learns that the gift of God is eternal life, but the wages of sins are death

Frank Wible
Oct 15
3 min read

Andrew always believed that good people went to heaven and bad people did not. It sounded simple enough. He worked hard, treated others fairly, and figured that was enough to balance the scales of life.

But deep down, he knew something was missing. Despite the outward success, he felt a quiet emptiness that kept him awake at night. Every time he messed up, the guilt lingered longer than it should. He began to wonder if his good works could ever truly erase the wrong he had done.

Sometimes the hardest road to grace begins when you finally stop pretending you can earn it.

One night, he sat in his truck after leaving work, staring at the steering wheel, unable to shake the thought that his life felt like a constant trade between failure and effort. He whispered into the darkness, “God, I don’t even know if I’m doing this right anymore.”

He had grown up hearing about grace, but it never made sense to him. The idea that God could forgive everything seemed unfair. Surely people had to earn something that valuable. But life had taught him that his strength and self-control always reached a breaking point.

When a close friend invited him to a small men’s Bible group, Andrew reluctantly agreed. He sat quietly while others shared their struggles and victories. One man quoted Romans 6:23 and said, “You can’t pay your way into heaven. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.”

Those words hit Andrew harder than anything he had ever heard. For the first time, he realized the verse wasn’t meant to scare him. It was meant to free him. The part about the gift of God being eternal life suddenly made sense. It was a gift, not a paycheck.

That night, he drove home in silence. Every mile felt heavier as he thought about his past, the lies, the pride, the times he had put money or pleasure above God. He knew he couldn’t undo those moments, but maybe he didn’t have to.

When you stop running from God, you find out He was never chasing to punish you—He was chasing to save you. — When you stop running from God, you find out He was never chasing to punish you, He was chasing to save you.

He parked in his driveway, turned off the engine, and sat in the stillness. For the first time in his life, he prayed not out of obligation but out of surrender. He asked God to forgive him and help him accept the gift he had been running from his whole life.

Over the next few weeks, something inside him changed. He didn’t become perfect, but the weight of perfection stopped crushing him. He began reading Scripture with fresh eyes, not as a checklist but as a conversation with his Father. He noticed that the more he focused on Jesus, the less he worried about keeping score. His days began with prayer instead of pressure. His nights ended with gratitude instead of guilt.

Friends started asking what had changed. Andrew smiled and said, “I finally stopped trying to earn what was already given.” That one sentence summed up his transformation.

He realized that his old way of thinking had been like working for a debt that was already paid. He didn’t owe God a performance; he owed Him gratitude.

On a Sunday morning, while sitting in church, he heard the same verse again. But this time, he smiled. It was no longer a warning about sin—it was a promise about grace.

Andrew walked out of that service knowing his past didn’t define him anymore. He was not the man he used to be. He was forgiven, renewed, and loved by a Savior who had paid the price in full.

From that day forward, he made it his mission to tell other men that no matter how deep their sin or shame, the door to eternal life is open. You just have to accept the gift of God through Christ Jesus our Lord.

What does it mean to truly accept God’s gift?