I was up late last night thinking about what it really means for me to follow Jesus and why it even matters. I was processing what the point of it all even is and how I could articulate this to someone who doesn't quite get the point of following Jesus. And though I feel like it's kind of weird for me to share this simplified story on a blog post, but I think it is important to be able to have a version of your own story that you have processed and then condensed so you can genuinely talk about it anywhere.

This is my story...in a very, very small nutshell:

I was 3 years old when I became a follower of Jesus. So my life before Jesus consisted of learning to walk, run, and ski. However, I distinctly remember the exact time and place when and where I put my trust in Jesus. I was in the hallway between my bedroom and the kitchen. I was there on the ground talking with my dad about Jesus and salvation and I decided right then that this was a life I wanted.

Even though, I was young when I became a follower in Jesus, that simple decision has had a profound impact on my life. I can’t claim that I was messed up before Jesus began to rule my life and then I changed because I didn’t have a ton of will power before 3 years old, and because I have been messed up pretty much my entire life - even after becoming a follower of Jesus. 

But the thing that has profoundly impacted my life is the reality of grace in every space of my life. I can never outrun the grace of God and I can never out-sin the grace of God, no matter how many times I think I have. Knowing that there is a God with a love so vast and inclusive as to love me to the point of death has captured my fascination and continually draws me to Jesus. 

Even though it is taking me a long time and the process is very messy, I am slowly becoming more like Jesus and I wouldn’t trade this life for an easier one. I can be real with a God who will never give up on me. I can have the hope of glory. And I can walk in confidence, knowing that my massive list of imperfections has already been forgiven and forgotten. And now I can know the God of the entire Universe...on a personal level! And this makes it worth it all.

The verses that have left the biggest mark on my life are Romans 5:8...

"God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!"

... and 2 Corinthians 3:5...

"Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God!"

What's your story?

When my brother and I were kids, we used to wrestle a lot...like many brothers probably do. Because

I was the older brother, I was usually able to beat him because I was stronger. But as we grew older, my win streaks became more sporadic until I could no longer take him. Now he weighs more than me and is twice as strong as me. Every wrestling match is an embarrassment now. I remember one time in college where my floor held it's annual Wrestle Mania during Founder's Week. As I feared, everyone thought it would be a great spectacle to see me and brother duke it out on the mat. Also as I feared, all present saw a 20 second pin resulting in him sitting on top of me. And as much as I tried, I couldn't push him off. He was too heavy. His caboose just sank into my back like a ton of bricks on a feather bed.

I think at some point in all of our lives, grace is a little like that for us. It shows up in our lives and just sinks down upon our selfish, defiant hearts. That was my story this morning as I was at church. We began to sing a song that talked about the grace of God, and my rebel heart began to resist. And as it kept chasing me across the wastelands of my own resistance, it finally hit me like a ton of bricks and sank heavy upon heart until I surrendered to God once again and let him speak grace and joy and peace into my heart. And as the tidal waves of God's love kept crashing over me, I was brought to tears of joy.

See, there's this funny thing about grace. It is extremely heavy for a selfish heart to bear. You cannot accept God's grace when you are constantly trying to justify yourself. Unless you give up trying to prove how awesome you are on your own, grace will just weigh down on you and make you feel guilty and weak. You just become exhausted trying to prove your worth on your own. But the minute you open your heart to accept God's love and grace, you will feel more freedom and peace than you have ever known in your life. The moment you drop the burden of control over your own life and accept the load of grace that Jesus offers, you will find how light and amazing it is. Indeed, Jesus even said,

"Come unto me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. All of you, take up My yoke and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourself. For My yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matthew 11:28-30 (HCSB)

So my encouragement to you this week is to stop trying so hard to find approval from everyone by making all the right moves and saying all the right things. You are more valuable to your heavenly Father than just for what you say or do. He loves you for who you are. So run to Him in prayer and in his Word, and seek his grace. And there is where you will find what your heart has always been looking for - unconditional love and unending grace.

He wants you. Just for you. Seriously.

You just did that thing you told yourself you would never do...

You looked in the mirror this morning and realized that you grew up to be just like your dad...
You woke up this morning and realized what happened last night...and why he is laying next to you...
You just said something nasty that you know you will never be able to take back...
You just went to that website, and you know she will find out...

Sin makes a huge mark on our lives. It cannot be erased. It stays in your story, always haunting you, and never letting you move on. Often, we go to great lengths to cover up what we did. We even, in extreme cases, think of ending it all so that we don't have to deal with the consequences.

Sin has consequences. But we often don't realize it until it is too late. Then what? Is there hope? Is it worth it to suffer through the consequences? Is there a light at the end of this tunnel? Better question: is there a light at the end of my heart? Will I ever give up this pet sin? Can I overcome? Is there such a thing as grace?

I was just reading this morning in Matthew 26-27. In particular, I was reading two accounts of extreme sorrow. Peter was wrecked over denying Jesus. Judas was wrecked over betraying Jesus and seeing him condemned. Both had committed extreme sins against the Son of God. But there was an essential difference between these two men. Peter returned to Jesus - sin and all - and found redemption and grace (cf. John 21:15-17). Judas just took his life. He couldn't handle the thought of bearing the consequences of his sin.

Something that hit me as I was reading about these two men this morning was that they represent a choice that all of us must make. All of us make mistakes, and sometimes we make huge ones. We sin, and there is no denying it. And when we do, we must face the consequences of our sins. But here is where the choice comes in: we can either face the crushing weight of our sin and let it overwhelm us like Judas did, or we can turn to Jesus and find strength and hope and grace to make it through like Peter did.

This seems like an easy choice, but so often I see people choose to act out of hopelessness, whether they turn to cutting, porn, running away, or, in extreme cases, suicide. Why is it so easy and compelling these days to run to pseudo-saviors? Why do we turn to these things to hide from the consequences of our sins?

I have three suggestions as to why I think people don't turn to Jesus to find grace in their disgrace:

1. They don't think they deserve it. This is a legitimate problem today. So many people out there don't think that they will receive God's grace because they don't deserve it. They usually will think they have to do more good works to muster up favor with God, or do more penance, or perform three more sacraments, or cut one more thing out of their life, or fast longer, and so on. They think they have to earn God's grace. But that's what grace is all about. You can't earn it! It is a gift - that you don't deserve! That's the whole point. If you deserved it, you wouldn't need grace. It wouldn't even be grace; it would just be your wages - what you earned.

So I encourage you, if you are feeling like you can't get grace because you don't deserve it: lay down your pride and turn to Jesus with all of your garbage. He will forgive. That's real grace.

2. They don't know they can turn to Jesus. Most people don't know that grace can be found with Jesus because they don't even know Jesus, and think he is just a religious symbol on a cross necklace or bumper sticker. This is a tragedy. People don't know that they can find grace with Jesus because they don't even know about Jesus.

So I encourage you, if you are a Christian reading this, pray for those who don't know about the grace of Jesus. Pray that millions today would find the healing and restoring grace of Jesus.

3. They don't want to be humble enough to ask for grace. This is something that I see around me everyday. People are too proud to ask for grace. They think they can figure it out on their own. They think that they can navigate the spider's web of their mess on their own. But when they mess it up even more, they don't want to admit they were wrong in the first place. But we have made it so much easier these days to medicate our messes with apps, social groups, drugs, pursuits, and other false gods of this century (read my post on medicating our pain here), that the grace that Jesus offers gets lost amidst our plethora of "saviors." So that when our sins confront us again and again and again, we are not told to give it up and run to Jesus for forgiveness and hope and grace and redemption. Instead, we are told, "There's an app for that!"

So I encourage you, if you are lost in the middle of your false saviors who promise healing, but give more needs, turn to Jesus. Lay down your pride and admit that you can't do this on your own. You need Jesus. Today.

There are three main uses of the word "medicine":

1. any substance or substances used in treating disease or illness; medicament; remedy.

2. the art or science of restoring or preserving health or due physical condition, as by means of drugs, surgical operations or appliances, or manipulations: often divided into medicine proper, surgery, and obstetrics.

3. the art or science of treating disease with drugs or curative substances, as distinguished from surgery and obstetrics.

 

   Often, we like medicine to serve us in a way very much like the third use. We like it to treat our pain with drugs. We just want to forget about what is hurting us. Yes, it might be better to treat the actually cause, rather than the symptoms, but our first priority seems to be pain-removal. Problem-removal is usually a secondary goal of ours. Remove the pain, then let's talk about removing the actual problem.

 

   Unfortunately, this is how we often approach our emotional pain, too. We just want to forget about the pain. We won't go to the source of the pain until we are absolutely staring it in the face. But most of the time, we would rather just medicate our emotional pain with quick fixes. This Aspirin Generation is also an iPhone Generation. We just want something to help us forget about real life, and sometimes the pain it brings, without ever having to face the real issues and problems and monsters beneath the surface. We are scared not only of all the work it takes to discover what is wrong with us, but also the uncomfortable soul surgery it takes to fix those problems and destroy those monsters.

   But we will never grow and defeat our monsters if we are constantly medicating the symptoms of a tough life. No it is not wrong to play video games, read romance fiction, watch TV, party with friends, or spend time on Facebook or Pinterest; but if these things keep us from discovering the real issues in our life - and from discovering the person inside us - we never experience the amazing life God has for us. If we are constantly running from who we are, we will distance ourselves from God's amazing grace to live for him, no matter how broken he finds us.

Today, I got rid of my iPhone. I had been noticing how much it was a source of emotional aspirin for me. If I was feeling stressed, I would go on Facebook on it. If I was bored, I would play my FIFA 13 app. If I wanted to learn more about coffee, I would get another coffee app. Every time I needed healing, I would turn to it instead of to God and to my real life relationships. So, despite how fun and convenient it was to have an amazing tool with which I could access the entire world, I knew that it was a pseudo-Savior for me. So I switched back to a "dumb phone." I have never felt so free and connected to God and others. Funny how that works...

   So I invite you to join me in discovering who you really are underneath all the soul medicine you are using to hide your pain. Be courageous enough to take out anything in your life that is acting as a pseudo-Savior, and run back to Jesus. You will find freedom and connection that you had totally forgotten about. It is there that you will find the grace that you had been looking for all along.