Sin and Grace

I'm blown away at how easily sin can creep into our lives, even when our guard is up. I've struggled over the past few years with the effects of some prominent mens' sins in my own life. Not just the horrific sins of pastors in my life who slid down the slope into horrific sin that destroyed their ministries and disappointed me, but sin against me. I've wallowed in the self-pity that festered as a result of those sins. But their sin isn't so much what frustrates me now. I'm frustrated by my own self-righteousness in how I view their sin. That little legalist within me likes to sit high on his perch and look down on these men that I once respected. I sense a sick gratification in that I didn't commit that sin, only to realize the sin of self-righteousness in my own heart.

In the midst of this I ponder what grace should look like. I not only don't want to forgive these men, but I want them to suffer. But that's not very gracious. Yet while I want to live out grace I find my heart runs to justice. Not true justice, mind you, but the kind of false justice that reduces my own wretchedness and elevates their wrongdoing.

The sins of others can so easily grind on us. Bitterness develops like a wound that festers. Depression and self-pity grow in that cesspool. My own sin gives way to acting like a pharisee. I zero in on the speck in my brother's eye and miss the log in my own. I forget that God is the judge and not me.

I long to be the person who can grieve over another's sin without becoming sinful myself. Grace demands that I not only forgive, but that I refuse to wallow in and spread the defamation of another's sin. Love should cover it. Love should guide me to bite my tongue, and not just my physical tongue but my inner tongue which I often let talk to myself. I so easily allow these inward conversations to go on where I set straight what that other person did to me. I tell them off in my head, and in so doing play the hypocrite. I allow their open sin to mask the hidden sins in my own life.

When I ponder the death of my Savior, I remember that he went quietly to the cross. Oh, that I would shut my mouth when I want to yell out from my "cross" all the sins that have been committed against me. I'm not advocating passivism when it comes to sin. But God as Judge, set forth in the Church the means to deal with sin in the flock. It's not my job individually. Yet why do I feel so strongly the desire to want to do that?

Grace is where I want to dwell. Not that I overlook sin, but that I grieve more over my own than I do that of others.