Grace, I call your name...

I don't really get to say this too often.

Chapel Wednesday was absolutely, positively amazing.

I haven't exactly been challenged recently in my walk with Christ. You see, I go to a church that is... well... struggling. They're much more preoccupied with trying to find a pastor that meets the needs of the over-fifty crowd, and they're not too concerned with making sure that the younger college students, like myself, get fed. To be completely honest, I started going to the church so that I could play music and sing again, not because the preaching was awe-inspiring. And, in all actuality, there are maybe two or three people there that are concerned about our spiritual well-being at all.

Because of this, I've been feeling really empty lately. It's like all the passion built up inside of me from last semester just dissipated. And I have no idea where it went. I don't want to get up for church. I definitely, especially don't want to go to chapel. Except for Wednesday.

The reason I'm prefacing a blog about chapel like this is because I'm just amazed at how God sends along an incredible message exactly when I needed to hear it. I wasn't even planning on going to chapel on Wednesday. I had to get up incredibly early to take a 7:30 shuttle shift for a friend, and I'd only gotten about five hours of sleep that night. I was exhausted, and I figured that chapel would just be as mundane and unimaginative as usual.

But then I found out from a guy in my history class that Josh Patterson, one of the executive pastors at the Village, was going to be speaking. I decided at the last minute to go. And I'm so glad I did.

Grace.

He talked about grace. And it was so... incredible to hear that part of his testimony. See, he didn't operate under the "true love waits" policy before he got married, partly because he didn't grow up in an environment where that was emphasized. His wife did. His wife went to a doctor and found out that he'd given her a disease that could only have come from his sordid past. His wife, the innocent party in the whole mess, got sick because of his mistake. But she didn't blame him, even though she could've. She showed him grace.

And I got convicted. Very, very convicted.

Because, in struggling with this loss of passion, I've also been struggling with something much more subversive.

I've been struggling with lust.

Man, that feels so good, getting that out in the open.

I've been struggling with my thought life. I won't go into any details, but it should suffice to say that it's been an issue for well over a year. Not about anyone in particular, nothing out in the open, but I have a bad habit of letting my imagination get away from me. And that's a sin. Christ said so. He said, "Anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." Substitute the word "man" for "woman" and "him" for "her", and you get my sin.

My sin is just as bad as someone who commits murder. Sin is sin in the eyes of the Lord. Even though it's not out in the open, it's still sin. And it still deserves to be punished, just like someone who commits murder or adultery or whatever.

But what I realized, listening to him talk, was that I've been shown just the same measure of grace that he has. My sin was nailed on the cross next to his, and because God chose me from the foundations of the earth, my sin has been forgiven, just like his. I have been saved by grace, because I was dead in my transgressions. I am a child of the King, though I was once a slave to darkness. Even though I continually struggle with this sin, it has been covered by the blood of the Lamb.

So let me take this to the next logical step. If I have been saved by grace, shouldn't I show the same amount of grace to a brother or sister that harms me? I have no right to be self-righteous, even to someone whose sin is not so latent. Can I really have the audacity to deny someone forgiveness just because they did something to hurt me? In the words of Paul, God forbid! I cannot, by the laws of grace, hold a brother or sister in judgment. I forgive because I've been forgiven.

And in thinking about all of this, I realize that I've been incredibly self-righteous. I have a terrible tendency to point out the faults of others, whether it's swearing or immorality or whatever. In reality, I have no right to sit in judgment of the sins of others. Judgment is in the hands of God, and not in mine. I have the obligation to show my brothers and sisters, and even those that don't believe, the same magnitude of grace that I've been shown.

Because, grace is unmerited favor. I sure didn't deserve it. I sure know people that didn't deserve it. But it was given to me anyway.