Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Justified (02/26/26)
-
TITLE: Sunday | Previous Challenge Entry
By Gloria Turowski
03/05/26 -
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE
SEND A PRIVATE COMMENT
ADD TO MY FAVORITES
Sunday tore a hole in the napkin with her fork. Not the name again, she thought. The waiter had asked where it came from. “I was born on a Sunday,” she said not looking up. She usually liked talking about her name but not today. In hot water for staying out past curfew, her mom, Jamie, had laid down the law. No social media for a week, instead she would spend time in her Bible and write a five-hundred-word essay on grace.
“Sunday, finish your dessert. I need to get to church to prepare for the evening Bible study,” Jamie said.
“Are you going to take me home? I don’t want to hang around a bunch of adults tonight.”
“I want you to sit in during our Bible study and if you’re not interested, begin drafting your essay. Being in church will give you inspiration.”
Sunday didn’t know the first thing about grace other than she was saved by it. Whatever that meant. Working on this essay would be a bummer. Rubbing her temples, she didn’t want to listen to her mom talk about end-times. She decided to take advantage of the time and do research. Sunday had been going to church since she was a baby. She was baptized and confirmed at St. John’s Lutheran church. She listened to the preacher every Sunday morning but rarely heard him preach on grace. She thought it was forgiveness of sins without doing anything to earn it. Sunday always believed she needed to do good things to keep her salvation. She prayed, went to church, honored her mother and father (sort of) and kept the ten commandments to the best of her knowledge. What else did God expect?
Luckily, Jamie hadn’t taken away Sunday’s school computer, so she could at least look up Bible verses about grace through google. There were tons of verses on grace, but she found a few that resonated. Sunday wrote the verses with a purple pen, making squiggly marks on the side of her notebook, while she thought about the meanings. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9, NIV). “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:1-2, NIV).
These verses were confusing because Sunday believed that she had to be good to get into heaven. They were saying that not by her works would she arrive in paradise but by her faith in Jesus. Wow, she liked this. Being justified through faith was enough to get her there, but she also believed living like a sinner would keep her from a holy life, because it was against God’s word. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23, NIV).
“What have you been doing all this time? What’s all that scrawling…”
“Mom I’ve been studying, and I think…I think…I understand why you wanted me to write this essay.
“What reason,” Jamie asked.
“I’ve learned that grace is a beautiful word. My sins are forgiven because I have been made righteous in the sight of God through my faith and God’s grace. It’s a relief to know that I don’t need to keep trying to earn my way to Heaven but can live a life full of grace.”
The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.
If you died today, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? You can be right now. CLICK HERE
JOIN US at FaithWriters for Free. Grow as a Writer and Spread the Gospel.
