I remember many years ago, hearing that a certain man had fallen from grace. “He must have done something really terrible,” I thought. After all, in the religious circles I frequented, that phrase was reserved for the worst of sinners.
Then I read the Bible and learned something much different.
In a letter to Believers living in Galatia, Paul declared “you have fallen from grace.” Why? Because they were trying to be so good. It seems that those obsessed with always performing righteously are in danger of alienating the very God they think they’re pleasing. In fact, “alienate” is the exact word Paul used. Scary.
I’m a sinner, so I might as well admit it. (Not that I like it that way.) The good news is that, just like Paul also said, I “eagerly await for the hope of righteousness from faith.”
Choices… Strive to be perfect and discount grace? Or be human – yet knowing through the eyes of faith that God sees me as perfect. I accept the latter. I’m too bad to fall.
Through faith not works, I know that God, as the song says, will “make something beautiful out of my life.” It is when I let go in faith and cooperate relative to what God wants to do in my life that real freedom results.