Trading Guilt For Grace

Before I began to understand grace, I viewed the directives in God's Word as a list of To-Dos and To-Don'ts. Grateful that God had provided a Savior, I earnestly wanted to please Him and show how much I appreciated Christ's sacrifice. I so wanted to be "good," and embarked on a crusade to win God's favor.

When I faced inevitable failure, I responded with a myriad of unpleasant thoughts and reactions, including:

• Resentment: "Why did God make me this way? Why can't I be more like...?"
• Rejection: "God's expectations are too high."
• Revision: "Maybe I'm taking God's Word too seriously. Maybe this isn't even a sin."
• Running: "If I talk to God, I'm going to have to admit I've failed, so I'm not going to talk Him."
• Rehabilitation: "I'm going to try harder."
• Resignation: "This is hopeless. I may as well give up."
• Run-down: "I'm exhausted from trying so hard, and I can't do this anymore."
• Rebellion: "It is impossible to please God, so I'm going to sin anyway."

While my responses varied, the end result was always the same: remorse. I was mired in guilt, and while guilt may influence our behavior, it doesn't change our heart. When I viewed God's Word as an insurmountable list of rules, it seemed as if all of Scripture pointed to my flaws and set me up for repeated failure. No matter how much I wanted to please God, it was difficult for me to muster the enthusiasm to carry on in the face of such futility. Guilt is a terrible motivator. 

But once I began to comprehend the concept of grace, I realized that my guilt was forever exchanged for God's grace at the cross. In Christ, I have been declared righteous and acceptable to a holy God, and my standing is based solely on His work. Since I did nothing to earn God's favor, I don't need to strive try to make God happy. He is already pleased with me. In fact, I am His beloved daughter.

I traded guilt for grace, and that changes everything because grace motivates in ways guilt can't.

With grace, I have hope because my relationship with God depends on Christ's work, not mine.  Loved unconditionally by a Heavenly Father who is worthy of my trust and honor, I began to understand that His law was not established to condemn me, but to teach me what is best. The focus then is not on my behavior, but the goodness, mercy, and perfection of God, and what He will accomplish in me as I yield to His Spirit. I still falter, of course, and though it grieves Him when I do, His love for me is not diminished because His love was never dependent on my performance.

The puzzling thing is that I sometimes try to trade back. Whenever I begin to think too much of myself or too little of Christ, I begin to barter away the grace. I can tell when I've made this foolhardy exchange because I begin to experience the "R" words listed above. The only remedy is to return to the cross and trade my guilt for grace again.

Are you holding on to guilt? How would your life change if you traded it for grace?

"But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy…so that, having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life." -Titus 3:4-7