Grace Unending

This week during communion I was thinking about the grace and mercy of forgiveness, and remembering that there’s nothing I can do to earn or repay that grace and mercy. But then my thoughts took me a step farther than I’ve gone before. Not only can I not repay it, but I will also never be good enough to not need it! Of course that’s logical, but I think we tend to overlook or forget that part. It is clear that the Christian life is to be one of growth in obedience and holiness, as well as growth in grace. Even though we know we’ll never be perfect in this lifetime, perhaps we think that we’ll reach some point where we won’t need God’s mercy. But that’s just what our imperfection means.

Have you ever thought about some of the saintly older ladies of the church and thought, “I wonder what they need to confess at their age?” I can think of a few who probably spend (or spent) a good portion of their time in prayer and Bible study. And then I compare my life and wonder if I’ll ever get to the point where sin “X” is no longer an issue. I certainly can’t imagine some of those ladies ever struggling with sin in a significant way.

In The Shelter of God’s Promises, Sheila Walsh writes, “I know that for most of your life you have believed that God’s love is based on whether we make good choices or bad choices, but the cross makes it pretty clear that no amount of good choices would ever be good enough. You are loved just the same on the days when you feel you’ve done a good job as on the days when you know that you have blown it.” It’s encouraging to know that God’s love never changes, and also to know that there’s no end to His grace. Imagine God saying, “Sorry, you’ve messed up one too many times. You should be better than that by now!” Instead He says, “Yes, I know that you’re ashamed of your ongoing struggle with sin, but I’ll always love you and I’ve already forgiven you.”

He knows that we are weak, He knows we are imperfect, and He knows we are slow-growing. At the same time, we tend to have a higher opinion of ourselves than we ought. We think we are strong (1 Cor. 10:12), we think perfection might actually be attainable (James 3:2), and we think we ought to be growing faster than we are (Col. 2:19). Sin is often a reality check, reminding us that we need God—His strength, grace, love, and forgiveness—far more than we realize. If we could fulfill our own wishes, we would be perfect and we wouldn’t need God. That was the temptation in the Garden of Eden, “you’ll be like God” and therefore will be self-sufficient.

I’ve been wrestling with 2 Corinthians 12 and Paul’s description of the thorn he had to deal with. He refers to it as “a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.” As we know, he never specifies what that thorn is, and it’s been speculated that it was some physical problem (like impaired vision), some particular temptation, or something else altogether. Whatever it was, it caused Paul to see his need for God’s grace. I’ve questioned whether this passage could actually refer to temptation. One would think that if Paul pleaded to be freed from a temptation then God would be glad to deliver him. But perhaps that’s not the case. James reminds us that God does not tempt anyone, but that man is tempted by his own desires (1:13-14). So it may be that God allows those desires to continue to tempt us. Hopefully we learn to turn immediately to God instead of giving in to sin, but we are slow learners.

In either case we need God’s grace. We need grace to keep us from sin, and we need grace when we do sin. We’ll never be beyond the need of His grace. May we not think of ourselves more highly than we ought (Rom. 12:3).

“As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:13-14).