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Thoughts for a Woman's Heart |
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encouragement in things that matter |
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The Grace Side of Sin
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Two women in the Bible stand out as knowing their sin. One made her living as a prostitute; the other was caught in the act of adultery. They knew their sin and Jesus knew their sin, but the women both experienced Jesus’ love and forgiveness. It would have been more "appropriate" within the culture of their day, for Jesus to have participated in their stoning, or at least, to have kept Himself at a distance from them. He did neither. Instead, He loved them in their sin and gave to them a radical forgiveness that freed them from the prison of both their sin and its burden of guilt. That’s grace.
I have come to the place of recognizing that it is a good thing to call sin what it is – sin. Sin is anything that is contrary to the nature or the purposes of God. Sin is falling short of those things that God exemplifies in His holiness, His love, His justice, His mercy, or His forgiveness. Sin demonstrates our human failures to respond to God with our trust, our worship, and our obedience. Sin reaches for self-satisfaction, rather than the unique potential God has designed me for. Wait a minute, Bev! Wasn’t my sin already judged at the cross, and hasn’t God given me a forgiveness that is absolutely total and complete for all my sins – past, present, and future?? I would wholeheartedly say, "Yes!" to your question. And – there is a Father-child relationship that is mine that gives me a seemingly natural desire to want to please my Father, i.e., not to sin. Reality says though that I will sin, even as a believer. It is when I fail to do what is my God-given desire to do, that I need to call sin – sin. Why?
It was in knowing their sin, acknowledging it, that the women who had sinned sexually came face to face with Jesus, and found the grace of forgiveness. If adultery is "an understandable response to an uncaring spouse," the adulterer will never seek the face of Jesus. If gossip is simply "a personality trait," or if demandingness is merely "an expression of individual rights," God’s grace will not be experienced. The believer seeks God’s grace in dealing with sin, not for forgiveness – she already has that – but for the grace that enables discernment, godly choices, courage to live in obedience, growth in character, and a fuller and richer Father-child relationship of dependence and trust.
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— Bev |
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