You are enough. You are more than enough. It's unbelievable how enough you are. You are not your past. It's not about what you've done, but what's been done for you.
Read that and let it sink in. Then, read it again.
We all stumble, fall and sometimes even face-plant doing a real number on ourselves. Each and every one of us, without a doubt, fall short of God’s glory, but we’re never not enough for his grace. It's an offer that's never off the table. I don't know about you, but that's mind blowing to me. God’s grace is always there to catch us when we fall, and we don’t deserve that. If anything we deserve the total opposite and yet, He gives it to us so freely allowing His holiness to pour out over us. He chooses to let His love fill up all the holes in our ugliness. God's grace isn't sweet and cute... it's scandalous. It will knock you off your feet. It directly enters into our shame and struggle; it doesn't wait around on the outside. As we sit in our disgust and filth, grace comes in to save us. We don't have to hide that we are messy human beings; because messy is exactly what God came to save. Our messy sins were paid for on the blood stained cross 2,000 years ago. Where blood ran red, our sins were washed white. His grace is reckless, we can never escape His unending love and that is our greatest hope.
There was a time throughout my life where I had a crippling fear that I was too damaged for Him or for anyone else to ever accept me. I was so confident that I had fallen so far from grace that I would be drowning in the deep end forever. But here's the kicker: from the corners of our deepest shame where our demons taunt us and all the empty barren places we've worn out His name, He continues to show us relentless grace. It doesn't matter how far off track we get or what situations we get ourselves wrapped up in, He still loves us. His love is a hurricane and we are trees, bending beneath the weight of his grace and love. We don't have to hide our sin, because God already put it on display with His son on a splintered cross. Every drop of blood was another drop of grace falling on us. He saw all of our mess and filth and shame and chose to love us regardless.... that kind of grace is dangerous. To look at someone and say, "forgiven," with absolutely no conditions, no strings, and no contracts. Grace like that will alter your world and flip you upside down.
We can never be too messy or filthy for God. Even when we feel like we've fallen so far off the edge, we really haven't. He's already got us covered even if we don't realize it yet. God has written and will continue to redeem our story. It's so important to remember that we can never outrun His grace. We can never fall far enough away from it. Because where our sin runs deep, His grace runs even deeper.
Trials and hardships will come and go, but God's loving grace will never leave us. It's a consuming fire that can never be put out. It's an alluring and captivating force that invites us to get lost in it. His grace loves us where we are, but it will never allow us to stay there. It calls us, the broken and unequipped, to stand back up in forgiveness and receive His unwavering grace with a clean slate.
Your hands can never be too dirty. I've said it once and I'll say it again, you are not your mistakes or your past. It's not about the broken and dark places you’ve been, but about where that brokenness has led you too. It’s about how strong you’ve become when weakness was all you ever knew. You can never fall too far, because the second you start stumbling is the very moment you fall even deeper into His forgiveness. His grace will abound in the deepest of waters and take you to places bigger than yourself.
We are loved more than we will ever be able to fathom in this lifetime.
Don't think grace is beyond your grasp. God is offering it to you. Take it, and find peace in Him. We are forgiven and revived... so let's start living like we believe it. Because I would rather die whispering His name than live an empty life shouting my own.
