The radical demands of Jesus daily remind us of our shortcomings and make us realize that salvation is God's free gift. Here we reach the heart of revelation. If the gospel tells us anything, if the church proclaims just one thing year in and year out, it is that salvation is God's free gift. The gospel is the glad tiding of gratuitous redemption. "You are a chosen people, a royal preisthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy" The Apostle Peter's First Letter, Chapter 9, verses 9-10. We have been translated into the kingdom of God's beloved Son not by our merit, but by His mercy.