i am she

I love the devos from She Reads Truth… recently, I read this:

There is grace because our God is both perfectly just and perfectly merciful. He doesn’t merely forgo the punishment due our sin—that would not be true justice.
He takes our punishment on Himself. He doesn’t simply pity our situation—that would not be true mercy. He receives us as we are and heals us with His love.

My pastor, Troy Maxwell, was recently talking about that ‘one thing’ that distracts us from Gods purpose. That one thing that trips us up over and over again AND how letting go of that one thing, surrendering it to Him, brings freedom to operate in the true purpose He has for our lives. For most people, surrendering that one thing is a daily choice, myself included. I’m working on it…

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Growing up it always hurt me worse when something I did wrong, disappointed or hurt someone else. I would rather deal with my own problems, my own mistakes, than share it with someone else and allow it to hurt them. I would rather the issues stay secret and I be the only one to suffer. I think what’s blowing my mind right now is that justice – for Christ – is not just forgiving my sin, but taking the punishment for it on himself. Something that I know, have heard and read all my life… But today it’s taking on new meaning.

We were watching National Treasure the other night and something stuck with me… The head investigator said to Ben Gates (Nicholas Cage), “Someone has to go to prison.” It didn’t matter that Ben had just discovered priceless treasures and then decided selflessly to share them with the world, someone still had to pay the price for the crimes that had been committed in the process.

In life it’s the same way. Becoming a Christian and accepting Christ’s salvation doesn’t just free you from your past and your sin without recompense.

Someone still has to pay.

The love of Christ, his grace, his mercy… Is that HE pays that price. He bled when I should have been the one to bleed…his heart stopped when it should have been mine.

I am unbelievably grateful and unbelievably unworthy… But my choice today is to walk in that grace because denying it would be denying the power of the One who gave it. So today I live free. Today I choose Galatians 5:1 “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”

To the adulterous woman… Christ said, “go and sin no more…”

Today I am she.