“There’s no way God can forgive me…not this time…I’ve gone too far…I’ve done this over and over…I’m a liar…I’m disgusting…He doesn’t even want to hear from me…I might as well give up…”
If you’ve had thoughts and feelings like this when you “mess up” in life, you aren’t alone. In fact, I believe the majority of Christians often feel this way and it can make our faith journey feel hopeless and heartbreaking. Though the circumstances may be different that bring each of us to this place, I do believe there is a common root cause for us all. You see, I think a reason so many of us struggle with the idea that God can love us even when we make mistakes, really boils down to one thing: a fear of Grace.
Fear of Grace? I know, I know, sounds ridiculous, right? Hear me out. You see, it’s almost impossible to believe that through Christ, God forgives and accepts us, but it's even harder to believe that even when we struggle and wrestle with the same sins, He STILL forgives us—still offers us that amazing grace. You know why that is so hard for us? It’s because we don’t really see or have a concept of real grace in our day to day lives. This kind of grace just does not exist in our broken world. I mean, let's be honest, human beings very rarely forgive and even if they do, they certainly won’t choose to act as though it didn’t happen, or even try to separate the “sin from the sinner”. That is not meant to insult people, but just to say that try as we might, our “human-ness” often gets in the way of our ability to offer people this kind of radical grace (Now the Holy Spirit can empower us to succeed in this, but that's a topic for another day...).
This may explain why we struggle to understand grace, but what did I mean by we have a “fear of Grace”? Put simply, we fear it because in accepting God's grace, we have to accept that we have no part in it. We did nothing to earn it, can do nothing to keep it on our own merit, and are completely at the mercy of God. HE chooses to give us grace. In this, we have absolutely no control...and we don't like that. It scares us to be powerless. It scares us to think that in order to accept that grace is real, we have to completely put our trust in the fact that God will keep His word.
Think about it, why are we overwhelmed with fear so often—especially when we “mess-up”? It's because no matter how much we claim to believe, there is always that little voice in the back of our heads that says, “Did God really mean I'm forgiven?...Surely this time I've gone too far...done the same thing over and over again...will he really still forgive me...love me...?” How can God forgive us over and over? Oftentimes, for the same thing?
The answer is simple: It's because when He looks at us, He sees Jesus.
Not our mistakes.
Not our sin.
Not our failures.
But Jesus and His righteousness.
The key to losing our “fear of grace” is letting go of the idea that we have any control or part in this amazing grace God offers through His Son, Jesus Christ. It's completely by Him and through Him. We cannot pay it back. We cannot be worthy of if by our own actions...yet, the flip side of this is the wonderful news that there is nothing WE can do to lose it. We cannot lose something that never was about us to begin with. The debt is paid...we just did not pay it...our Loving Father did. In accepting that our salvation has nothing to do with us, we can find rest from trying to be “good enough” in some vain effort to earn our salvation. We have to believe Jesus, when on the cross He told us, “...It is finished.”
Finished.
The debt is paid.
Let go of the “fear of grace” and, instead, rest in grace.
“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.” -1 John 4:18