My entire life, I was raised Christian. I went to church Sunday morning and Sunday night, and my family did devotions daily. I went to Sunday School and VBS. Let it be known, I was indoctrinated. My parents did well in following the command of God in Deuteronomy 6:6:
And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Unfortunately, I also discovered sin at a young age. Trying to reconcile the teachings of the Bible with my actions, I quickly discovered shame. I always felt that I was letting God down, over and over. I felt that I was beating Jesus with that horrible Roman whip each time I failed. I could just imagine the disappointment in Jesus' eyes. In my personal life, I despised myself, I was deeply ashamed, and I hid.
It took quite a while for the Grace of God to crack my shame. At some point, in my self-righteousness I felt that Jesus expected me to be ashamed, that the only right thing to do as someone who accepted the gift of the death of Jesus was to hate the part of me that put Jesus to death. So when I became aware of the truth and depth of the amazing grace that Christ bought for us, I pushed it away. I was a pharisee before I was a teenager. I bound up a burden that I could not bear, and I felt oh so righteous for my own self-flagellation.
Yet, God is patient and he kept chipping away at my pride, at the stone wall of my hiding place, and at the terror I had that my shame would be known. One day, I just couldn't carry the burden for another minute, and I opened my heart. I let certain people see into my shame, and they showed me grace. In that horrible bright light of truth, of transparency, I discovered that shame is a lie.
Romans 3:23
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God
Romans 5:8
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Yes, we are all sinners. I always knew that. God loved us anyways and Christ died for us, I knew that too. Yet, I figured that accepting grace was just for my sin-actions that I did before I accepted him. I felt like at that point, my life should have changed, I should no longer sin. I held myself to this high standard that I could not possibly live, and I despised my failures as I felt that God despised my failures.
What a sad waste of my thoughts, of the wonderful moments of life I have been given! Here I have a God who has so much love for me that he moved heaven and earth to create a path of salvation for me. He chose to become a man, to live perfectly as a man, and to be executed in horrible fashion as the single sacrifice for all my sins, to face Hell and to prevail. He accomplished perfection because I cannot. He never expected me to pick myself up by my bootstraps and get my ass in gear, he instead expects me to love him, to humbly serve him, to pick up my cross and follow him.
Shame is a lie! It is there to destroy your relationship with Jesus. Shame is pride, shame is assuming you could have been perfect and you failed. You may have sorrow for sin, but do not allow shame to destroy your heart. It is a waste of your life, and will separate you from the one who truly loves you.
This, my friends, is my story of grace. I have been exploring the depth, width, and breadth of grace for twenty something years. I am constantly amazed by it. Recently, God whispered something to me. He told me, "My grace for you is infinite, you cannot defeat it." Strange, huh? As if I would want to defeat grace... yet now I see myself anew.
I have been so blessed by grace, so blessed that God would keep me, so amazed that God's love extends despite my continued failures in sin; I have truly explored grace and it has defeated all shame (not sorrow, but shame). What did God mean? Well, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I might just be that child who keeps testing the love of his father over and over, just to make sure it is still there. God allowed me to test him for twenty years, and he said to me that he has proven himself. He will love me every moment, his love is not touched by my failures, his love cannot be moved. It is time to now trust that the love will always be there, and move on to the next step he has for me.
It is time to live victoriously. It is time to move on from the milk of the Grace of God to the meat of victory. It is time to leave sorrow behind and move on in the process of sanctification. The point is not that I will now all of a sudden win every battle, no, the point is that I have tested my safety net of grace and found it will always save me. It is time to draw closer to Christ, to see how he battled temptation and how I can as well. It is time to run life as a marathon, not live life from my couch. I may stumble, sure, but I need to get off my lazy butt and start running.
Jesus called us to a life of "picking up our cross daily and follow him". It is time for me to stop being comforted by the grace of Christ and start discovering that the path before me is hard. There is a safety net if I fall, I have tested this and proven it will always catch me. But I need to get on that path, with a big heavy cross on my shoulders, and follow my loving Savior.
But this is a letter, I am writing to you. So enough about me, what about you? I give you two thoughts.
First, if you are in a cycle of shame, it is time to allow some light onto your heart. Be set free from the lies of shame, you are loved! You are so treasured that God allowed his son to die for you to save you. The grace he bought is beyond measure, your finite list of sins cannot defeat his infinite grace. Stop judging yourself in your own pride, and allow Jesus' forgiveness to set you free. Set aside your pride and get help from wise counselors who are on the path, following Jesus with a cross on their shoulders. If there are earthly consequences, face them. You must let go of shame before it destroys your relationship with your Savior, before it destroys you!
Second, if you, like me, have known the amazing depth and width and height of God's grace for some time, if you have been set free from shame, it is time to live in freedom. "For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery." (Galations 5:1) I am not calling you to perfection, we will always stand only because there is a firm foundation of grace beneath our feet. I am, however, calling you to join me on this path. Pick up your cross, let's go follow Jesus! Let's discover victory in our lives. Let's go to battle against the power of sin in our lives, and the destruction it brings to our world.
For those of you who are ahead of me on this journey, feel free to lead and guide those of us who have just dared to get off the comfy couch of grace. We want more than the forgiveness of Christ, we want to grow and find victory.
