LIKE many people, I was born into a Christian family and like most families there were rules and disciplines set in place which constituted our value system.
True to our Indian culture and code of conduct handed down from generations preceding, we were raised almost military style.
Some of these rules and disciplines were sometimes so harsh that it left little room for error and almost no room for mercy if ever one of those laws were to be transgressed.
Don’t get me wrong. Our families loved us and raised us this way with good intentions – to bring honour to our family name.
And so, in the name of honour, we were plucked and pruned, chopped and chiseled until we got it right.
Unfortunately with this method of upbringing, we were also taught to fear God and not the way Bible defines this fear as holy reverence for God, but to be afraid of Him.
So growing up I always had this fearful expectation of judgment.
As time went on I found this to be counter-productive to my spirituality because it brought with it so much uncertainty as I always had to ‘check myself’ to see if I was still saved and so my warped view of God then, only aggravated my fear of Him.
But after years of fear, condemnation and wrong believing, God stepped in and re-directed my attention to Him and through His grace began to correct my view of Him.
He not only would teach me from His Word about His love, His mercy, His compassion, His truth but allowed me to experience it in my walk with Him. This is the single most defining lesson in my life.
Like me, there are many who the spirit of religion has put outside of the fellowship of God by giving them a false view of who God is.
True grace produces the righteousness of God. While law attempts to modify our behavior in the hope of re shaping our mentality and refining our character, the grace of God transforms from the inside out. All who are in Christ have been saved by grace through faith in Him.
God is love. He is always merciful and gracious. God is not angry with you anymore because judgment has been averted because of Calvary.
This is where Jesus gave Himself as a trespass offering for you and I so that all of God’s judgment and wrath for all of the sins that we have committed have been fully met in the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Don’t let your failings and mistakes challenge your identity in Christ. Submit to the Spirit of grace inside you and He will direct your attention away from you trying to get your behaviour right to focusing on Christ and His finished work.
This will produce the right behavior that you desire. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. 2 Corinthians 3:18.
God is on your side and He is working on your behalf. So don’t run away from Him when you know you have sinned or messed up, but instead run to Him. He wants to love you; to heal and to restore you.
Yes, we will always find ourselves doing something foolish but this is not who you are. You have been made the righteousness of God in Christ.
Someone once said, “Freedom isn’t freedom if you are not allowed the freedom to fail.”
After all it was God who put both trees in the midst of the garden, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and evil. Think about that.
God’s grace is unearned, undeserved, unmerited favour. This is God’s gift to you as His sons. Receive it and live.
