“Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more” (Romans 5:20).
Whether we have spent more time in jail than in church, God’s grace is available to forgive our sins and remove all our shame. Which is greater? God’s grace or your sin? God’s grace is greater and stronger than your sin through the blood of Jesus Christ! If Jesus’ blood can wash away the sin of all nations from all time in all of history (Hebrews 9:14; Revelation 1:5; 5:9; 12:11), certainly His blood can wash away your sin and shame the moment you believe in Him for His gift of forgiveness and everlasting life (John 3:16; Acts 10:43)!
God is not uptight about our sin and shame. He still loved us even though we were undeserving, ungodly sinners without any strength to reconcile ourselves to Him. He did not wait for us to clean ourselves up before He died in our place. The Bible says, “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). “Christ died for the ungodly,” not the godly. “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Christ died for us “while we were still sinners,” not saints. The idea that we must clean ourselves up and stop sinning before we come to Christ is not found in the Bible! We must simply come to Christ as we are and He will cleanse and forgive us.
God’s grace includes everyone. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). The word “whoever” includes both good people and bad people, godly people and wicked people. When people start deciding who is deserving of God’s grace and who is not, they are cheapening His grace. The fact is none of us deserve His grace. We deserve God’s justice and punishment in the Lake of Fire (Romans 3:23; 6:23a; Revelation 20:15). So instead of pointing the finger at others, let’s give them God’s grace so they can discover that God is the God of second chance (Acts 20:24; Ephesians 4:32). He is in the business of forgiving and restoring guilty sinners with His grace.