Evil and Sinful Yet Accepted and Loved
Dear Champions,
The short excerpt is by Rebecca Pippert. In this excerpt she is counseling a woman that could not forgive herself over aborting her unborn child. The Scripture is Matthew 9:12-13 Jesus said, It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice. For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.
I cannot forgive myself! I have confessed this sin a thousand times, and I still feel such shame and sorrow. The thought that haunts me the most is how could I murder an innocent life?
I took a deep breath and said what I had been thinking. I do not know why you are so surprised. This is not the first time your sin has led to death; it is the second. She looked at me in utter amazement. When you look at the cross, all of us show up as crucifiers. Religious or nonreligious, good or bad, aborters or nonaborters-all of us are responsible for the death of the only innocent who ever lived. Jesus died for all of our sins-past, present, and future. Do you think there are any sins of yours that Jesus did not have to die for? It does not matter that you were not there two thousand years ago. We all sent him there. So if you have done it before, then why could you not do it again?
She stopped crying. She looked me straight in the eyes and said, You are absolutely right. I have done something even worse than killing my baby. My sin is what drove Jesus to the cross. It does not matter that I was not there pounding in the nails, I am still responsible for his death. Do you realize the significance of what you are telling me? I came to you saying I had done the worst thing imaginable. And you tell me I have done something even worse that that.
I grimace because I knew this was true. Then she said, if the cross shows me that I am far worse than I had ever imagined, it also shows me that my evil has been absorbed and forgiven. If the worst thing any human can do is to kill God s Son, and that can be forgiven, then how can anything else-even my abortion-not be forgiven?
I will never forget the look in her eyes as she sat back in awe and quietly said, Talk about amazing grace. This time she wept not out of sorrow but from relief and gratitude. I saw a woman literally transformed by a proper understanding of the cross.
Tim Keller puts it this way. The gospel message is that you are more sinful and evil and weak than you ever dared believe, but you are more valued and accepted and loved than you ever dared hope.
Champions, have a great week!-David Vining
Posts
