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.