SCANDAL!

Grace is a SCANDAL.

Scandal: "a circumstance or action that offends propriety or established moral conceptions or disgraces those associated with it." (Merriam Webster)

"God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." --Romans 5:8

Sinners are separated from God because of His holiness -- He cannot be in the presence of sin because He is perfect. Here's where the scandal comes in... Christ died to take away the barrier that separated us -- the curtain was torn (Matthew 27:51), the sin is washed away (1 Cor 6:11). That doesn't make sense; it goes against everything that we know as far as morality and "right" and "wrong". We have engrained in our minds -- across cultures -- that wrong behavior must be punished. As sinners (also known as human beings) we stand in direct opposition to the God of the Universe; we disobey the rules He has established on a daily basis. And you know, if you get pulled over for speeding but say you didn't know the law, you're still guilty. It's the same with God -- whether or not we recognize our sin, we stand in His presence 100% guilty with a payment to make as punishment.

However, that's where this scandal becomes so beautiful, because it's so personal to me, to you. We deserve punishment for our disobedience to God, but He took that upon Himself in order to set us free. The glorious thing about this scandal is that He didn't just take our sins away and tell us to be good children now. That's moralism, and that's bad. It's not a vacuum where He sucked all our sin away and leaves us with an empty void that we now fill with being good -- but He fills us with His Holy Spirit and with His righteousness. That's a big word that basically means that we now stand before God as perfect and complete by the blood that was shed on the cross.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." -- 2 Corinthians 5:17

I don't know about you, but it's incredibly frustrating to recognize sin in my life today. I get in the mindset that I'm a new creation, I shouldn't sin. In Christ, we stand before God as perfect, as saints. But as Pastor Haugen once said, "You can have a saint with a dirty diaper." As we live in the [already, not yet] -- we are simultaneously saints and sinners. The beauty in this is that the price that Christ paid on the cross was sufficient. It was paid in full.

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." -- Ephesians 2:8-9

[What a huge scandal in such a beautiful exchange. My sin for His righteousness. It was done over 2000 years ago, and we stand in that freedom and forgiveness today.]

Maybe you already know this, but I pray that it would be a reminder to you today of what He did for you that day in history. The biggest scandal of all time, and it has everything to do with YOU.


"Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him" -- Colossians 2:6
You received Him through grace. Walk in that grace today.