Does it ever amaze you that you continue to experience the grace and mercy of God in spite of your sin and shortcomings? Does that realization cause you to worship Him or run from Him?
The more I grow and change, and the more I begin to peek behind the curtain of my own heart, the more I begin to experience the glory of God.
My sin magnifies God’s glory.
When I said that recently to a friend, she said that sentence was a mind-blower. She is right. It is a mind-blower that the more I sin the greater God looks! Paul understood that when he wrote Romans 6. The worse I am the more amazing God’s love and grace appears because the more amazing it is! Paul said,
For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:7-8
Sadly, in most cases I am familiar with sin makes them run from God. They view trials and difficulties of life as punishment and chastisement from God for their sin. This is incorrect theology dear reading friends! As has been said before there are always consequences for sin, and they can be steep and costly in many ways however, they are never “punishment” from God.
The reason we have trials and difficulties is because we live in a sin cursed world! Even then, God is sovereign! In the midst of every trial there is an opportunity for growth and change and a chance to glorify God.
This is the difference between looking at life and our troubles from a punitive viewpoint or a grace based viewpoint. We prefer punitive. For some reason we would rather think we are being punished and earn our forgiveness through suffering for our wrongs. That completely flies in the face of grace and the cross. It is the difference between law and grace. We have been so brainwashed to think that punishment is where it is at- and in truth punishment was where it was at, but someone else took it for us.
He made us clean and whole and spotless, and we have nothing to do but believe. It seems too easy for us…because He made it easy for us. And you and I, well, we have to get to a point where because of what Christ did we are in such utter awe of it that we want nothing to do with the life dominating sin we haul around with us.
And I know there are those who say that this teaching leads us to continue to want to sin, to maintain the lifestyle of the prodigal knowing that when we have had our fill of the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and pride of life that we can come back home again. This is an abuse of grace, and I maintain that a Spirit-filled believer will not do such a thing on a continuum. Of course, every believer has areas of the flesh that die harder than others and yet wanton abandon to sin in many or all areas will not be their lifestyle.
There are some things we just idolize so deeply that we don’t want to give them up as fast as others. God is patiently waiting for us to know these things in the heart and to desire Him above it all. The more we resist… the greater the idolatry.
Painful stuff Beloved, it is painful stuff to look behind the curtain of the soul.