"How sweet the sound": MY STORY OF FINDING DAILY GRACE

I have no bent toward grace.

I can feel this as my day begins and I start to measure my worth by my accomplishments. I fight the urge to check my Bible box and instead simply sit at my Lord's feet, learning. Is my time wasted if all I do is bask in my Lord's presence? I struggle. I then move to caring for my body by working out. Another symbol that I am competent - able. I complete my miles with a sense of satisfaction. Convinced that this means:

I am worthy.

All around me are symbols and indications that I am enough. Perhaps even more than enough depending on the day. It is here, in this struggle with self-reliance, that I am most vulnerable. Because, you see just as I begin to feel secure in my worth by measuring my own successes - the battle begins. At the start of each day it commences and the allegations begin to wash over me... 

  
You're unclean and you can never be truly clean. 
You're a murderer - of the most innocent and vulnerable. What business do you have, having children?
You're angry.
You're a fake - only showing people one side of yourself.

How quickly my sense of "worthy" and "enough" fade as these accusations are heaped on me  Beginning to believe that my Accuser speaks truth, I become smaller and smaller until I all but disappear into the darkness of my shame. Hopelessness threatens to consume my "competent" existence, as I am left with little defense. It is here, in my most desperate hour of need, that my God reminds me of one thing:

The cross.

Where my own sin stands as my accuser, my Lord, on the cross, stands as the One who took all of my sin and shame upon himself. I am no longer accountable before God for my sin and my conscience has been cleared. I stand, free from their consequences. Reminded that those sins are all gone. I have been forgiven. In the light of this Truth, all of my guilt and shame begin to fade - giving way to joy and hope. The sun begins to rise and the darkness fades.

I repeat this process daily, I am sad to say. It may seem simplistic; infantile even. To some, the stuff of "spiritual milk". But unless you've experienced the crushing weight of your sin, you can never truly understand the amazing grace that is the forgiveness of those sins. There is freedom at the foot of the cross, friends.

But maybe you are like me. Maybe you have been forgiven of the worst and have had the literal 'weight of the world' removed from your head and soul. And maybe, like me, your need for forgiveness is so great that you dare not stray too far from the foot of the cross. Lest you forget that your sins have truly been forgiven.   
Because, away from the cross our sins accuse us.
Away from the cross their weight is overwhelming and soul crushing.

But at the cross, well, at the cross is peace. At the foot of the cross is forgiveness and restoration.

And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people's sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ's ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for God when we plead, "Come back to God!" For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin so that we could be made right with God through Christ.      2 Corinthians 5:18-21

Loving and praying for you all, today!