Elyona Vaughn: How Unmerited Forgiveness Changed Everything

October 8th, 2026
by Grace Fellowship

Before Christ - What was I living for?

Before I was saved, my life was a lot like Paul’s in Philippians 3:

Circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

I was born into a Christian family, raised in Grace Fellowship, followed all the rules, confessed my own sins to my parents, corrected my sister when she did wrong, and was blameless in every law.

I knew Jesus was the Savior, and I asked Him to save me when I was seven years old. I don’t know if this was when I was actually saved. I believed Jesus was my Savior, but my heart and mind wrestled with the knowledge that I was saved by grace alone but also was supposed to do good works.

I spent years trying to check off the boxes of a good Christian, using my sisters' wrongs as a foothold to make myself feel better about myself. I wasn’t as bad as her. I stacked her wrongs against me and kept count of each one, and unforgiveness grew in my heart. As a senior in high school, I came to the point that I hated her.

Christ - How did Christ save me?

But Jesus used her to open my eyes to the unmerited forgiveness He had given me.

One night I was angry at my sister and turned to her in the car and yelled, “Why don’t you apologize to me for all the things you’ve done to me?”

She answered, “Ely, I’ve already forgiven you for all the bad things you’ve ever done to me.”

I was slapped in the face with my own sin. Christ showed me who I truly was. Ephesians 2 says:

[I was] dead in [my] trespasses and sins…But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved [me], even when [I] were dead in [my] trespasses, made [me] alive together with Christ—by grace [I] was saved—and raised up with Him and seated with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus…For by grace [I] had been saved through faith. And this is not [of my] own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of [my] works, so that [I] may [not] boast.

With Christ - What am I living for now?

Jesus used that night to change my heart to not only believe that He was my Savior, but His salvation didn’t need my works. They were dirty rags.

I forgave my sister, and have never remembered the things she had done to me again. I was baptized soon after, and experienced joy in Christ that had nothing to do with my own work.

Since then, Jesus has slowly revealed sins in my life and is sanctifying me from the inside out. As He reveals the sins of judging others, loving myself more than others, using others to make myself feel greater in my head, and many others, He also reveals the patience and deep love He has for me.

My sin does not separate me from the love of God anymore because Jesus died for that sin. Just like I didn’t do anything to earn the forgiveness my sister gave me for all the things I did to her, so I didn’t do anything to earn the forgiveness God gave me for all of my sins against Him. Because of that, any good work I do is only an outpouring of the work He has done in my heart. Ephesians 2:10 says,

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

The greatest truth I have learned about God is this: Despite me and any sinful or good works I do, He is good, He loves me, and He will never leave me nor forsake me.

This article was written by Elyona Vaughn.

Posted in Stories of Grace
Posted in Christian Testimony, Saved by Grace Alone, Overcoming Legalism, Forgiveness and Reconciliation, Biblical Sanctification