I’m an introvert. For those of you that know me, this isn’t a surprise. I also judge others by their abilities and accomplishments. I know, we aren’t supposed to judge others, but every one of us does. Another thing, name dropping doesn’t impress me. I couldn’t care less if you have Bono on speed-dial, had lunch with President Obama on Tuesday, and are on a first name basis with Bill Gates. If I needed one of those individuals ears, I might ask for you to help bring a message I had already sent to their attention, but if that’s how we’re evaluating you, you don’t even register on the dial. You’d probably impress my wife, but in many cases, name dropping does the exact opposite for me.

If you want to impress me, then you have to show me what you’ve done, what you know and what you can do. I want direct results. As a result, I evaluate myself based on my accomplishments and intellectual knowledge and have very little desire to extend my social reaching. Because of that, networking is something that makes me completely shut down. Small talk just makes me think about all the books I could be reading or tasks I could be completing.

Just imagine…

Now, imagine what happens when a person with my personality encounters the gospel. You see, our salvation has absolutely nothing to do with our abilities, our knowledge, our accomplishment, or our work. It has everything to do with who you know. You can’t work your way into God’s grace. You can’t earn your salvation. It was given to you by God as a result of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for us, and our relationship with Him. Your eternity is completely dependent on you spiritual networking. And guess what? You have to schmooze up to boss’ son before you can bridge the gorge-dug-by-sin and reach the big man on campus.

Yes, God can see all those good deeds, and he has heard about you through the grapevine. You might be a hot up-and-comer in the Changing the World department at Life, Corp., but without that relationship with Christ you can’t truly reach your potential no matter how hard you work. The boss’ executive suite will always be out of reach.

My salvation is completely dependent on my faith and relationship with Christ. Now, I’ll admit that it’s now a long standing relationship and is nothing like schmoozing to get ahead in life. But if I hadn’t accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior, and had to today, I’d probably be stuck on a good deeds treadmill.

If you’re someone trying to earn your way into Heaven, please stop what you’re doing for a second and seek out this guy I know. Trust me, you’re only going to work yourself to death otherwise.