Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Grace and the Remnant Echo of Unworthiness

When we focus on our unworthiness before God, we slip into the legalistic mindset just as much as when we focus on our worthiness. But love does not think that way. So, God, who is love, does not weigh us out as to whether or not we are “worthy.” That simply has no place under His grace. “I am unworthy” is the remnant echo of an old human-wrought system that never did hold sway with God, and was disproven by the Incarnation and the Cross.

Yet there is something in us that wants to keep pointing out our sins to us, however many or few we may think we have, and we often want to compare them against the sins of others. However, that is not the voice of the Father but of the accuser.

But the Holy Spirit is in us to reveal to us the things of the Lord Jesus, things that Jesus has received from the Father (John 16:14). The Spirit is always directing our focus to Christ, and Christ is always revealing the Father to us. When our attention is on Him, not on us, then what other aspiration do we need?

It’s not that we are not important. But we don’t focus on our importance any more than God focuses on His own importance (Philippians 2:5-8). God is love, and the nature of love is to give and serve. In other words, love focuses on the one who is loved. So God focuses on us and we focus on God. We are important to God, significant to Him, because He loves us. And we in turn realize God’s importance, His significance to us, by loving Him.

On what shall our hearts dwell? Shall we look at our unworthiness and count all our sins? Or shall we not rather focus on Christ and have faith in Him? Let us appreciate His love by focusing on God, who is love, revealed to us through Christ by the Holy Spirit. For His grace shatters the remnant echo of unworthiness.

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