Don't quote me yet, but I'm beginning to believe that the degree to which we are willing to own our particular sins is the degree to which we actually believe in grace.
It's one thing to confess the truth about human sinfulness. It's a very easy thing to do, in fact. But it's another thing to confess the truth about our particular sinfulness.
As a result, it's entirely possible to use the language of depravity & grace in such a generalized way as to make them functionally meaningless.
In writing, there is a maxim: "Show, don't tell." And it seems to me that this applies to much of life. Don't tell me you believe in sin & grace. Show me.
Show me that you believe in sin by confessing your own. Show me that you believe in grace by repenting & throwing yourself on God's mercy.
Let your confession of your sin be as full & as unconditional as you profess the grace of God to be.
There are orgs & teachers who have built their entire ministries around key words, ostensibly declaring the truth about God's grace & human sinfulness. But I wonder...
Do they have to say it so loudly because because we'd never have known it otherwise? Do they tell these things because their lives & org culture doesn't show them?
And for ourselves, do we actually believe in grace? Do we actually believe that we are desperate, dependent people? Do we understand that the proof of grace is not our goodness but our failure?
Those who truly understand grace will not excuse, minimize, or sidestep their sin. They will not rationalize, deflect, or blame others for their own faults.
When faced with the brutal reality that death reigns in us--that we have ourselves perpetuated evil--they own it. They confess it. They repent.
Because such people know that it never depended on them in the first place. They know that it--everything--was ever, only, and all of grace.
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