I think it's hard for me to grasp this because while my old self is dead, I still sin. I'm not a slave to sin - I definitely see the difference there, and I've seen how I've grown in that sense, but I still sin. Yes, I'm a new creation - Christ lives in me. I hate that I sin. I hate that I still have an indwelling sin nature. I hate my depravity.
I need to remind myself that Jesus is enough. I think, somehow, it doesn't connect in my mind that Jesus dying was enough, no, more than enough to satisfy the wrath of God. I think somehow I'm afraid. Afraid that somehow I'm not completely covered, that my sin is too sinful for Jesus' blood to cover. Which is ridiculous, and heretical. Sometimes things just don't make it to my heart.
Grace is radical. It's crazy. I don't understand, but I'm praying that God will move this knowledge from my head to my heart. Lord, give me understanding.
Jesus blood is enough. Nothing but the blood of Jesus could cleanse me from my sinfulness. I. Am. Free.
From an article by Tullian Tchividjian:
Like Job’s friends, we naturally conclude that good people get good stuff and bad people get bad stuff. The idea that bad people get good stuff is thickly counterintuitive; it seems terribly unfair and offends our sense of justice. Even those of us who have tasted the radical saving grace of God find it intuitively difficult not to put conditions on grace. The truth is that a “yes grace, but” posture is the kind of posture that perpetuates slavery in our lives and in the church.
Grace is radically unbalanced. It has no “but”; it’s unconditional, uncontrollable, unpredictable, and undomesticated. As Doug Wilson put it recently, “Grace is wild. Grace unsettles everything. Grace overflows the banks. Grace messes up your hair. Grace is not tame. In fact, unless we are making the devout nervous, we are not preaching grace as we ought.”
What the Pharisee, the prostitute, and everyone in-between need to remember every day is that Christ offers forgiveness full and free from both our self-righteous goodness and our unrighteous badness. This is the hardest thing for us to believe as Christians. We think it’s a mark of spiritual maturity to hang on to our guilt and shame. We’ve sickly concluded that the worse we feel, the better we actually are.
God’s grace doesn’t demand you get clean before you come to Jesus.It is true! No strings attached. No but’s. No conditions. No need for balance. If you are a Christian, you are right now under the completely sufficient imputed righteousness of Christ. Your pardon is full and final. In Christ, you’re forgiven. You’re clean. It is finished.
