God is big enough

Last October, when I was a member of the Emmaus walk team, one of the women on the walk was talking about forgiveness. She had been worried that what she had done in life was too big to be forgiven by God. A friend of hers told her by doubting God's forgivness, she was shortchanging the blood of Christ.

Is God's love -- is God's grace large enough to be sufficient for you

Back when we were teaching the class about the book What's so Amazing About Grace, this was a big issue. I told the class that not only were their sins forgiven, but that they were forgiven before they even commited them. That grace -- that forgiveness was given to them as a gift. In order for it to be tranformational, they had to accept it, but the gift had already been given.

I wondered at the time if I were right. It felt right to me -- it felt like God to me.

This past Sunday, one of the ministers who attends our church (but is not THE minister) delivered the sermon. His theme was that there are two really hard things that we are asked to do -- to love and forgive each other. He's right -- they are the two hardest things to do. He went on to say that we are forgiven by God -- already -- before we even commit the sin. That went a long way to affirming what I think.

And then I read the lectionary readings last night. Listen to this:

And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing. Galations 2:20b-21

Listen to it again:

Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God's grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.

God's grace is large enough. It doesn't depend on keeping the laws and it isn't given in response to the size of our sins. It is grace -- free and all encompassing.

Images: From the campus of West Virginia Wesleyan. Love that new camera!