There have been seasons in my Christian life when I became acutely aware of my own shortcomings. During those times, I’ve had a tendency to drown in my guilt or throw myself into my own efforts to overcome, unsuccessfully. Those seasons did not diminish God’s grace; they deepened my appreciation for it. If you are a Christian, then you have been saved by God’s grace (unmerited favor) through faith in Jesus Christ. As a Christian, you understand that salvation is not through works of righteousness that you have done (Titus 3:5) but through God’s grace. It is not because you earned salvation, nor is it because God loves you unconditionally. People often say, “God loves you unconditionally,” as though His love required nothing of anyone. But the Gospel tells a different story. God did not ignore the demands of His holiness. The condition was met. Not by us … but by Christ. It cost God His Son. It cost Jesus Christ His life through obedience in suffering (Hebrews 5:8). It was due to His great love for us that He died so that we could live. Even as yet, we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).

We must not forget that this love is conveyed to us through the grace of God. This week, I am reading The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges.[i] One observation in Bridges’ book that especially challenged me was, “grace and the personal discipline required to pursue holiness are not opposed to one another” (p. 3).  I have noticed that Christians often slip into one of two mindsets: one, constantly dealing with guilt because of their inability to do what is right; or two, purporting a grace that ignores the sin in their lives. Neither of these is correct. Legalism says we must work our way back into God’s grace. The Gospel says that Jesus, as our Representative, assumed all the obligations Adam failed to fulfill and fulfilled them on our behalf (p. 60).

In Romans 6:12, Paul exhorts us not to let sin reign in our mortal bodies. Paul was trying to say, “Live out your lives in the reality of the Gospel.” It is God’s grace that saves us and God’s grace that sustains us. It is God’s grace that justifies us and God’s grace that sanctifies us. “We indeed do sin, and even our best deeds are stained with sin, but our attitude toward it is essentially different from that of an unbeliever” (p. 64). In a careful study of Romans 5 and 6, we see that Paul’s message is that salvation includes both deliverance from the penalty of sin and freedom from the dominion of sin. Paul distinguishes between sin’s presence and sin’s dominion

Ask yourself, “Does God’s grace merely forgive me, or is it changing me?” God disciplines those He loves (Hebrews 12:6-7). This is the discipline of grace that Bridges so elegantly writes about when he says that “salvation and discipline are inseparable” (p. 67). Paul says, “Examine yourselves to see if you are in the faith” (2 Corinthians 13:5). Peter says, “Be all the more eager to make your calling sure” (2 Peter 1:10). God disciplines us to the point of continual transformation. May it not be said of us, “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you” (Romans 2:24). Paul was obviously concerned about the life and witness of the believers in Crete. We, too, are to be concerned about our lives and our witness to the world.

It is the “once for all definitive breach with sin” – the decisive deliverance from the dominion of sin – through union with Christ in His death, that ensures a true believer will not have a cavalier attitude toward sin. “Shall we go on sinning that grace may increase? Heaven forbid!” (Romans 6:1-2). The issue is not whether believers still sin. We do. The issue is whether we justify our sin or bring it before Christ in repentance.

[i] Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace (Tyndale House Publishers; CO, 2006).