READ: ROMANS 3:20-24; EPHESIANS 2:8-10

Being adopted by my family wasn’t the only way my cat Oliver demonstrated a lesson of grace to me. You see, it’s common for cats to leave little presents for their humans. And when I say “little presents,” I mean dead mice that we’d find just outside the front door. Cats leave dead animals to show loyalty to the humans who take care of them—how cute is that?!

As you can probably imagine, my family had no use for dead mice. But I can’t tell you how excited I was when Oliver began to demonstrate to my family that he loved us back!

That’s how God’s grace works in our lives. He pours His grace out on us. He’s the One who gives us every single blessing we have (James 1:17). And what do we have to give Him in return? Dead mice! Isaiah 64:6 says that all our good deeds “are nothing but filthy rags.” That means the best we could ever give to God is still trash. Like dead mice.

But you know what? I still smiled when I saw those mice because they meant that my cat—the cat I adopted and named and loved—loved me back!

God offers to save us from sin and death and bring us into His family with no strings attached. I didn’t adopt Oliver because of anything he could give me in return. And even if he never gave me a dead mouse, I still would have adopted him. Our God treats us the same way. We don’t have to do anything to earn His grace—and we couldn’t even if we tried—but once we know Jesus, we begin to respond to the heaps of grace He has dumped on us.

Going to church, obeying parents, telling a friend about Jesus, working hard without complaining—those are all dead mice. They will never earn us eternal life. Our relationships with God are already secure because of what Jesus did when He died on the cross and rose from the grave. But Jesus still wants what we have to offer. Because even though He doesn’t need our offerings, He still delights in them, and He uses them for good in His kingdom. • Emily Tenter

• What are some of the “dead mice” you offer God? Can you think of a time you compared your “dead mice” to those of other people? Why is that wrong? (1 Corinthians 12:12-31)

• If the best gifts we can give God are still worth so little, why does it matter if we give them at all? (Hint: read 1 Corinthians 12:7; Philippians 2:13; 1 Peter 4:10)

When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Isaiah 64:6 (NLT)