A Little Bit Personal

2 Corinthians 5:21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

If that verse doesn’t get you so excited on the inside that you want to jump or dance or shout, then you might not fully understand grace.

This is an excerpt of an email I wrote a friend a few years ago where I was relating a dream I’d had and the effect it had on me:

“Another strange thing that I know was in the first email I sent you is that my middle name means Grace. Whenever I think about that it makes me uncomfortable because I don’t feel like I understand God’s grace in a tangible way outside of just the line that you hear all the time “mercy is that Jesus got what we deserved and grace is that we get what He deserved.” You know how there is talk in the Bible about God giving us new names? I want a new name so badly, but I’ve told Him a few times that I don’t want it to be Grace because it doesn’t seem to fit. I can’t even really understand why I feel that way but I know I start to tear up every time I think about it. Grace feels like something that doesn’t belong to me and I feel almost resistant to having any part of it, which I know makes no sense because I’m a Christian saved by grace.”

The Problem of Morality

There is a focus lately on a return to morality, def. “The quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct.” It seems to be many people’s answer to the problems that plague our world. Contrary to popular belief morality never helped anything, at least not long term and the story of the Bible is that morality never saved anyone. Morality was the emphasis of the covenant of law. In essence, God told the Israelites that if they would follow His laws they would be blessed and taken care of, but that punishment and consequences would come if they didn’t. Of course, God knew full well that they would never obey for long, and that no matter how many times they re-dedicated themselves and re-committed to following all the rules, they’d blow it again.

Yet, today we try to do the same thing, and most of the time it’s Christians leading the charge. We know we aren’t saved by being moral (works), but by faith, yet we still think following the right rules will ingratiate us to God and change our society for the better. Why is that?