Romans 3:24

Romans 3:24
I am a stay-at-home mom. I spend the vast majority of my time on tasks that my children need done but can't accomplish for themselves yet. In a lot of ways it's easier to freely give my time and work to them because they can't do those tasks for themselves. I might struggle to maintain a gracious attitude while washing dishes someday when those dishes are dirtied by older children who are then capable of washing them themselves. But sometimes they aren't convinced that the task is beyond their capabilities and my struggle is not in completing a mundane chore such as dish-washing but in "forcing" my child to accept my gift to them. They don't recognize it as a gift like those wrapped in pretty paper or a gift bag.
We often relate to God in the same way. The only way we can be justified is through God freely offering His grace of redemption through Himself. No matter how capable we are in other areas of our lives, we are not able to accomplish this task on our own. Jesus Christ has redeemed us, knowing that we couldn't do it ourselves, yet still we struggle against Him and try to do it on our own. Like a 3 year old yelling "I can do it myself!" we wrestle God over a gift He is trying to freely give us. The truth is that our salvation is way beyond our capabilities and we need to allow Him to graciously do for us what we can't do for ourselves. Maybe it would help if we would recognize it as a gift much nicer than any wrapped in a gift bag.