It's Time to Redefine your Deophobic Mind

Something that bothers me a lot is when non-Christians think Christians have it all together. I don't know how often this is the case, but I have met and heard of people who don't think they're good enough to be accepted by God. They think that they're too far gone to turn back now. They think that Christians will judge them because they're messed up.

This doesn't make sense to me for a number of reasons. First of all, I consider myself to be a Christian. I go into my relationship in greater detail here. I can honestly tell you that I am just as messed up as you. I don't care what you've done or where you're at right now, I have been there or have been on the path myself. I struggle with things on a daily basis that would make me a hideous ugly person if I actually went through with those things. I'm not any better than you are.

The only difference between me and the person who's not saved is grace. All the wrong things I've done and have yet to do are covered by the grace of Jesus, like they never happened.

Look at it this way: There's me, and there's my friend, and we've just come back from a crazy ride on our ATVs in the rain and mud. We're filthy, covered from head to toe in mud. We know we're going to get in big trouble for this, because our clothes are white, and my friend's mom is the ultimate neat freak. That mud and dirt represent sin, or all the gross bad things we've done in our lives. In order to go into the nice warm house where there's hot chocolate and Skillet CDs to be blasted, we need to somehow remove ourselves from our dirty state. That house represents heaven. (Yes of course we need Skillet in heaven!) The grace that Jesus showed to us when he died on the cross is like the water hose we go to to wash off the dirt from our bodies. It removes that which we couldn't remove by our own power. You see, there's only one way in, and that's through the water, through Jesus Christ.

"I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

- John 14:6

You may be asking then, "If God just takes away all our sins, why is there even a need for good and bad? Why do we have a conscience that makes us feel horrible when we've done something wrong?" It's a good question, one I've wondered myself. Going back to the dirt illustration, not having a knowledge of good and bad would be like me and my friend not knowing what dirt was, and therefore we would have no fear of access into the house being denied. But God has given us the ability to understand what is good or what is bad, so we know not to do it. That's why murder is illegal. That's why rape is frowned upon. That's why we have laws that must be obeyed.

The law made us realize just how messed up we were. There have been numerous cases in my life where I've tried to do one thing again and again and failed. Sometimes, people standing on the outside looking in on the Christians are doing the same thing. They've tried and tried, but still they can't get things right. They still screw everything up and are worse off than before. I know how they feel, I've been there.

"The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace incresed all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

- Romans 5:20-21

What this verse is saying is that the law was given to us so we could look at our lives and realize the need for help. If we never knew anything was wrong, how would we know we needed to be saved? We wouldn't know that the dirt in our lives was pushing us farther and farther away from God. But the best part is, we do know. We have been shown that we need a savior, and he's gone ahead and saved us before hand. Grace increased all the more, so we might be saved from eternal punishment.

It wasn't by anything I did. I knew I was messed up, and I still mess up sometimes. But Jesus covered me with his grace by taking the penalty of death for me on the cross, so that no matter how many times I fail, I can still come to him and know that I'm forgiven.

"Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."

- Acts 4:12

"For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."

- John 6:40

"And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace."

- Romans 11:6