Is Grace a License to Sin?
Have you ever gotten a continual message from God over and over and over again, in as many different ways as you can imagine?
Lately that has been my experience with the gospel. Every book I pick up, every sermon I hear, every quote I find and every verse I read points me to the gospel—or at least it seems that way.
And although I’ve heard the concept of preaching the gospel to myself daily and understood it to some degree, I haven’t got it as profoundly as I’d like.
I’m praying for understanding, for application and for ability to live out the gospel daily.
I just read these verses and again what struck me was the gospel!
“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen” (Gal. 1:3-6, ESV).
God truly has been reminding me over and over again about His relentless, passionate and unconditional love for me—for all of us.
The first word, grace (love that word, BTW), is defined as “an undeserved act of kindness.” It represents all that we have received as a result of Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross.
And then that other lovely word, peace, is a result of the grace we have received because of Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross.
That sounds a little bit repetitive, but I’m trying to get that gospel message into my head and heart more deeply than ever—that the grace and peace that God gives us is because of Jesus, not us.
Isn’t that freeing?
It was God’s will for Jesus to die for our sins so that we wouldn’t have to, so that we could have a relationship with Him, so that we would know that He loves us more than we could ever imagine.
I don’t know about you, but I need to know that—I mean, really and truly know that.
I have recognized lately that I really struggle with thinking I’m worthy of anything. I wonder if everything happened because I really am a complete mess—because a lot of times I really feel like one.
Sometimes I feel like I’m such a failure. I wonder if I’ll ever get things right with parenting, home management and my career (whatever that may be). I wonder if anyone would truly be able to deal with my life—really. I wonder if I could ever truly be a blessing of a wife to someone; my first time around didn’t end so well.
The funny thing about my fears and my feelings is that know they are bogus. They don’t reflect who I am in Christ. And I know who I am, so why do I struggle so?
Why is it so difficult to see my value as a child of the King? Why am I so impacted by my successes or failures in this sin-ridden world?
