HOWEVER GREAT THE WEIGHT OF SINS, GOD’ GRACE IS GREATER

Romans 3:23-24 English Standard Version (ESV):

 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus

Many of us imagine that, when we die, we will get into heaven saying:  “Well, I’ve been good…mostly good.  Good more than bad.  OK, at least I’ve been better than that guy over there!”  But our conscience troubles us.

In our quiet moments, we may wonder if we’ve really been that good:  “Has the evil I’ve done, the wicked thoughts I’ve had, the good I let on I had done for others but I really had done to suit myself, the things I should have done but didn’t…have these things outweighed all the good I’ve done?”

Even if we’ve been “mostly good”, the economy of that kind of salvation does not work in our favor.  Our God is a holy God.  It means God is so pure and righteous that no evil, no one with the slightest moral blemish can come into His presence.  No man or woman can enter into His kingdom except the COMPLETELY righteous.  And to break even the smallest part of God’s Law is to break all of the Law for all time.  On that day, standing alone before God, we have no hope.

But our holy God offers us hope.  However great the weight of sins, God’ grace is greater.

Christ comes and calls us by name to Himself.  Jesus offers us refuge from the wrath to come.  He comes to have us live in His kingdom now…today…not just in some distant future.  On that day we stand before God to be judged, Christ will cover us in His own righteousness.  It will be like clothing our crippled, wounded bodies with His own pure white robes so that our sins and impurities cannot be seen.  Thus we will live in God’s presence forever.  Our assurance that this will happen is not because we think it or feel it.  We know that God will embrace us because Christ told us it will be so.  Best of all, Christ tells us God embraces us now…today.

Thus, in those times when our conscience bothers us and tells us we will never be good enough, point to the Cross and be of good cheer.

Heavenly Father, I have sinned against thee not only in outward transgressions, but also by secret thoughts and desires which I do not fully understand but which are all known unto Thee.  Forgive me in the name of Christ Jesus, Thy Son, our Lord.  In His name, let me find my rest in Thee.