Sinners Under Grace

I was listening to a podcast with Jackie Hill Perry, the woman who wrote the book “Gay Girl, Good God”, and I found something she said so true and so fascinating.  Because it changes the way we see God.  She was talking about Genesis 3, where Eve was being tempted by the serpent, and she said something to this effect: ‘What Satan says makes sense to us. It is logical to our human minds. When Eve saw that what Satan said appeared to be true, she gave in to his temptation. (When she saw that the tree was good for food, and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.) What God says requires trust.  And along with that, it is counter-intuitive.’ I have noticed the same thing in my own life.  When I finally realized (the hard way) that Satan is a liar, my life started to change.  But along with that I had to start seeking out God to see what He wanted.  And this is another thing that Jackie Hill Perry said that was the same as a thought that had occurred to me:  if we have a Creator, then we are a creature.  And we owe it to our Creator to find out what pleases Him.  Something like that. 

So today when I am reading in Romans, I am also reminded of these two thoughts. Because there is an unseen world out there that we would do well to understand.  A spiritual battle for our lives.  It is taking place every day all around us!  Evil and God’s grace that forgives the evil.  Paul, the writer of Romans is talking about the counter-intuitive when he tells us about the grace of God that forgives the sin of those who come to Him and believe that we have eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.  His grace covers all our sin.  All of it!  The sins I committed in ignorance, the sins I committed  after I came to know Him, but before I fell in love with Him, the sins I committed yesterday, and the sins I have not yet committed, but as long as I am in this earthly body and am living in this fallen world, are still going to happen.

But here is the difference for me:  now that I know who Jesus is, and what He has done for me, I WANT to be different.  When I knew I was a ‘nominal’ sinner I asked Jesus in my heart to forgive my sin.  But I did not really change or love Him the way I do now.  Why? Because I did not really know Him.  Satan had me thinking I was good enough and did not really have time to read my Bible but “that’s ok, don’t feel bad, everyone is busy”. But when the events in my life took a turn that I did not expect, I fell apart and had to get to a place of misery so that I KNEW the world could not make me happy.  And only THEN did I start to read my Bible and ask God to open my eyes.

We are to consider ourselves as dead to sin.  “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin – because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.” (Romans 6:6,7).  When I had wandered away from God, He came and got me.  And when I saw that following Him was better than ANYTHING I could chase for myself, I wanted to be different.  So, some things had to go. Some people had to go. Some habits had to go. And I am not saying that it was easy.  Because when you have allowed sin in your life, whatever it is, it takes a hold of you.  And before you realize it, you have become a slave to sin!  And not only that, sin is never satisfied: ‘…just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.” (Romans 6:19b). So here is the counter-intuitive part.  When you are living in sin, you think you are ‘doing whatever you want’ ‘not hurting anybody’.  But you do not realize that what you really are is a SLAVE.  Because the thing that you chose to do with your body or your mind is now a thing that you can no longer control because it controls you.  And now other activities that you would have never considered before, now do not seem ‘that bad’.  Because along with this sinful path you have chosen, or accidentally got sucked into, comes a twisting of the mind.  Delusions from the enemy.  So now it becomes even more difficult to see truth. But here is a fact about sin:  the only fruit that sin will bring in your life is death.  You have now earned it.

So. when my own misery led me back to Jesus, He let me find Him.  He was there, waiting for me to come to my senses. And to show me how loved I really am! So, when Romans 8 talks about being ‘slaves to God’, it is a different kind of slavery.  It is a slavery that brings freedom.  It is counter intuitive.  Why?  Because the Author of our lives, our Creator, created us for good things. For freedom.  For eternal life. “When you were slaves to sin, you were free of the control of righteousness.  What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of?  Those things result in death!  But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness and the result is eternal life.  For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:20-23).

Once I started to really follow Jesus, something else happened. My sin became in my own mind ‘things that I am now ashamed of’!  Before this happened I was like the wicked person in Psalm 36:2: “For in his own eyes he flatters himself too much to detect or hate his sin.”  That was me.  And even then, I was not happy – I was anxious and depressed and believing lies.  But not anymore!  My sin is now ‘a thing that I am now ashamed of’.  And that is good!  That means that I agree with God that He is right and I am wrong.  And this passage in Romans 6:11-14 now describes the way I want to live the rest of the days that God gives me on this earth: “in the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.  Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.  Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.  For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace”.

We have a choice.  There are only two choices. It is a lie to believe that there are any more than two choices. There are only two! We can offer ourselves to sin and death, or we can offer ourselves to God and life.  Choose life!