When God Says No: Part 2

Paul asked God to remove the thorn in his flesh:

“Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to torment me so that I would not exalt myself. Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it would leave me,” (2 Cor. 12:7-8). But God’s response was to leave the thorn in place saying, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.” What does it mean for God’s grace to be sufficient for me? Or even more fundamentally, what is God’s grace? To understand this is to understand the essence of the gospel – the good news of Jesus.

There are two ways to be righteous before God. The first is to keep the law of God. All of the rules for righteous living are spelled out in the Old Testament. All of the “thou shalts” and “thou shalt nots.” If we spend our entire lives doing what God says to do and avoiding what he says not to do, we will stand before him as righteous. So far so good, right?

Part of living under the law is accepting the consequences of breaking the law. If I get caught exceeding the speed limit, there’s a fine. In our society, in general the more severe the crime, the more severe the penalty. This leads to the faulty idea that God grades on a curve, and so long as our list successes is longer than our list of failures, that’s good enough. But look what James tells us: “For whoever keeps the entire law, and yet stumbles at one point, is guilty of breaking it all,” (James 2:10). There’s no weighing good deeds versus bad deeds. Under God’s law, the penalty is death – whether it’s one sin or many doesn’t matter. If you can’t live according to every rule, all the time, every day, under every circumstance, that’s it. You owe the fine, and the fine is death and eternal separation from God.

Thankfully there’s a second option for being righteous before God: grace. Once sin entered the world, God knew we could never undo the damage on our own, so he devised a plan. He would come into our world as one of us, with a physical body, and live among us. Jesus would live under the law, accepting its terms – and he did it! He lived every day without a single infraction. He never talked back to his mother, never had a cross word for his siblings. He never told a lie or cheated on his taxes.

He could have pointed to his record and said to us, “See, it can be done – this is how you do it.” But he didn’t do that. Instead, even though under the law he owed no penalty, he decided to pay the penalty that you and I owe. He took all of our guilt upon himself. And he’s the only one who even could do that, since he had no guilt of his own. He allowed himself to bear the punishment through death on the cross. As a result I am no longer liable under the law for my sin. And that’s not even the best part.

If Jesus had been crucified and died, then what? It’s uncertain where that leaves things. Fortunately, he didn’t stay dead. Three days after he was crucified, some of his followers went to visit his tomb. When they got there, they found the grave was empty, and an angel was waiting for them. “The angel told the women, “Don’t be afraid, because I know you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here. For he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay,” (Matthew 28:5-6). This is the truly good news of the gospel: Jesus not only paid for my sin, but he defeated death itself, and made it possible for me to live free from sin’s bondage, without fear of death! This is grace: I did nothing to earn it, or to deserve it. I was granted a free pass from what the law demanded of me. And not only that, I share in Jesus’s resurrection. I am a new creation – dead to sin and alive to God!

Sometimes I forget this though, and begin to live as though I am still under the law. When bad things happen, I fall prey to the lie that it’s because of something bad I did. I try to make up for it by striving to live better under my own power. I forget that all of my sins – past, present, and future – were erased the moment those nails crushed through Jesus’s hands and feet. His grace is sufficient for me. His grace allows me to live in freedom, not only from the power of sin, but from the guilt of it as well. Make no mistake, I still sin. The difference is that I am not under the law. I confess those sins to him, and he is faithful and righteous and forgives me. That spot of unrighteousness washes right off. He loves me so much, and wants to live in fellowship with me, not because I’m so good, but because he made me his own by his own choice. Sometimes when God says no, it’s because I’ve been trying to earn his continued favor. He has to remind me: my grace is sufficient for you.

So. Where are you? If you are living under the law, that’s a heavy burden, friend, that you don’t have to carry. You can choose to live under grace, and be free from the law’s demands. What you will find is not only forgiveness of sins but a whole new life – the life God intended at creation. Freedom. If you’d like to make this choice, you can pray a simple prayer to Jesus asking for grace. That’s all there is to it – just ask him! My friends at Wild at Heart have a page that walks you through it. If you decide to take this step into grace, let me know so I can pray for you as well.