Grace is Amazing (Really)

“I’m afraid I’m not good enough to get into heaven.” The teenage girl twirled a pencil in her hand as she expressed her concern to the entire youth group. Other students nodded, relating to her fear.

The youth pastor cleared his throat. “Oh well, just remember that Jesus loves you.”

That’s it? I was shocked. This girl was afraid she’s going to Hell because she isn’t good enough to earn Heaven, and all she was told was that Jesus loves her? There’s so much more to say!

You should say it, Hannah.

Excuses were ample: “Me? But that’s not in my script. What will I say? I’m here to speak to the youth group, yes, not to give a Gospel presentation...”

Yet what did I have to lose? My voice felt small. “I think it’s important to remember that repentance is hating our sin and turning away from it...and that salvation is placing our faith in Christ...and that we can never be good enough to earn heaven.” I prayed my long, run-on sentence made sense.

The youth pastor stared at me, his eyes glazed over and annoyed. “Uh, thanks."

A week has passed since this conversation and it hasn't yet left my mind. Here’s an interesting observation of my own heart from that youth meeting: I don’t focus on the Gospel. Yes, I try sometimes; but not to the level that I should. I felt perfectly content to give a hip, pre-planned announcement to the teens about something unrelated to the state of their eternal destination. I wasn’t excited about sharing the Gospel.

As the most crucial of all messages, the message of "Christ dying for lost sinners" ought to be shouted from every pew and streetcorner. But here's the problem: how can I expect to shout the Gospel from a streetcorner if I don’t give it a corner of my mind? If I forget what a sinner I am myself, how can I witness to a teen girl at a youth group? This calls for another re-visiting of the Cross.

A Wretch Like Who?

Dad likes to tell the story of the time he stood at a grocery store checkout, toting me in the shopping cart. When a woman passed by, I suddenly pointed my finger and began to call out to her: "Sinner! Sinner!"

I was two years old.

Growing up as a daughter of Christian parents and the granddaughter of Christian missionaries, it's easy to forget how much my sin weighed. Compared to some of the people around me, I've always been the goody-two-shoes type. Still, my attempts at goodness are tainted by my sin nature, and if you scratch more than the surface, you'll see I'm just as guilty as the rest.

Kris Lundgaard had it right when he wrote:

Every night Tom Brokaw tells us about shady politics and business scams. People finding loopholes in the law to use their sweat-earned money to build stately pleasure domes in Zanadu. But the sleaziest back-room Mafia deal can’t equal the deceitfulness in your heart. The heart is 'deceitful above all things.'

Think about it. Do you remember a single moment in which you did something truly good--not motivated by a desire for recognition? Do you remember "serving God" without paying the slightest attention to whether you served as much as the next guy? Do you remember a single time in personal Bible study that your mind has centered totally on Christ, with zero distractions? Yes, there might've been the time you really longed to praise God, but did you? Did you praise Him with completely pure abandon?

Me neither. That alone should draw me to my knees, in awe of God's redeeming love for a wretch like me; only when I remember my sin can I begin to appreciate the amazingness of Christ's grace.

When You’ve Been There Ten Thousand Years, Will You Remember Why?

I love, love, love the declaration of Hebrews 2:14-15: "Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery."

What's the moral of the story? That we have no morals, but Christ crammed His beatific Self into a weak body complete with muscle cramps and hunger pangs and every bit of human frailty in order that through dying in our skin, He might destroy the one who has power over us, and free sin-infested people who were enslaved to that worrisome question:"What will happen when I die?"

Now that's something worth singing about, and worth telling lost teenage girls in equally confused youth groups. Only by realizing our sinfulness can she, and I, ever comprehend an inch of this glorious, glorious Gospel.