Great Sin, Greater Savior

In my writing class this morning we were given a few minutes to write a "creative non-fiction" essay with a religion prompt.  One of the suggestions was that I "Think of a time in your life when your faith reached a turning point...when life experiences brought an abstract concept such as sin, forgiveness, grace or hope of eternal life into focus."

This is what I wrote:

I've always, at least as far back as I can remember, been aware of God and his love for and forgiveness of me.  I know that at the age of five I wasn't afraid of dying because I knew I'd go to heaven.

But the magnitude of God's love and grace, his mercy and forgiveness, has become more real to me as I've become more aware of the magnitude of my sin.  I think as we get older and lose innocence, we gain capacity for "bigger" sins, not ones any worse than those we committed as children, but sins that have far greater consequences than hitting a little brother or taking a cookie we shouldn't have.  I know that the sins I've committed in the last couple years have created strong feelings of guilt and remorse that I didn't experience as a child.

Becoming more aware of my own sinfulness has also opened my eyes to the wonder of the Gospel.  God created me, and I sin against him.  He sent his Son to die, and thereby take the punishment for my sins on himself, and I still sin!  But the mind-blowing thing is, no matter how much I sin, God still forgives me.  When Jesus died he paid the price for every sin that I've ever committed or will commit.

I don't want to sin; I want to do good and obey God.  But I end up doing what I don't want to do and not doing what I want to do.  Paul talked about this very thing in Romans 7: "For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing" (Romans 7:18-19).  Paul concludes chapter seven with, "Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (7:24-25).  Chapter eight begins, "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death" (8:1-2).

Despite my sinfulness, I know that God has taken away all my sins and forgives me, completely and daily.  David writes in Psalm 103, "The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.  He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever.  He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.  For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us" (Psalm 103:8-12).  God does not treat us as our sins deserve.  Instead, he is compassionate and gracious, abounding in love, and removing our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.

As I have become more aware of just how grievous my sin is, so I have come to realize and become awed by how great God's love is.  His love far surpasses my sin: how great is the love and mercy of God compared to my sin!  How wonderfully does he not reject me.  How amazing his grace is.