Sinner Saved By Grace

 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. –Matthew 5:8 NIV

Just call me “Messy Michele.” Not that I live in disorder and clutter, because I cannot function well, if at all, if my immediate environs are disorganized. It’s because I rarely can eat or drink anything without spilling or splattering something on me.

I can don a white sweater before I leave the house, but by the time I arrive at my destination, you can bet that coffee stains have added themselves to the design. One time I took spaghetti for lunch to heat in the microwave at school. Of course, that morning, without thinking of what I’d planned for lunch, I put on a white blouse.

But I was careful. I covered the front of my blouse with two or three paper towels, held the dish next to my mouth and gingerly forked in small portions. I thought I’d emerged unscathed until I looked in the mirror. There, on the shoulder of my white blouse, was a small red splotch of spaghetti sauce!

It’s hopeless. No matter how careful I try to be, somehow I attract the splotches, splatters, and spills like a magnet attracts iron. I’ve learned to carry a roll of paper towels in my vehicle and keep a stain removal chart in the laundry room, along with a bottle of liquid stain remover. 

Even with all the laundry boosters, though, some stains don’t come out. But I’ve found that if I hang the laundered-but-still-stained garment on the line outside on a sunny day, the sun’s rays will bleach out the stain. 

So it is with my spirit. I cannot emerge from living in this world unscathed by the sin that surrounds me daily. Most days I struggle with my humanness, and I fail to live up to my Lord’s command to be perfect and pure (Matthew 5:48, 1 Timothy 5:22). 

I can’t be a saint. I’m too much of a sinner. I face the quandary St. Paul found himself in: “It seems a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another law at work within me that is at war with my mind. This law wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin?” (Romans 7:21–24)

How can God expect us as Christians to be perfect and pure? When our spirits are so willing, and our flesh is so weak? How can He expect sinners to be saints?

Perhaps the key is understanding what a saint really is. In many of his letters to the churches, Paul called the believers “saints.” Not sinners. In Romans 1:7, Paul addressed the letter “to all in Rome who are loved by God and are called to be saints.” We are called to be saints, to live pure, perfect, holy lives. 

Impossible? Yes, if we try to do it in our own human power. But there is a supernatural power available to live holy lives: God’s Holy Spirit. We allow ourselves to be controlled not by our sinful, human nature, with which we war every day, but by the Holy Spirit, who indwells every believer at the moment of salvation (Romans 8:5–11). 

Why, then, if I have the Holy Spirit living in me, do I still fail? Because my human nature, although no longer in control, still resides within me. Personal holiness is not instantaneous. It’s a lifetime process, acquired through many failures, trials, tribulations, and sorrows; watered with both storms and showers of human tears; and cleansed by the rays of the Son. 

While I live on this earth, in this “body of death,” as Paul called it (Romans 7:24), I am going to fail. But, praise God, “there is now no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.”  While I stand at the foot of Calvary’s cross, where the Son’s rays bleach out my sin-stain, God sees not Michele the sinner, but Michele the saint.

That’s what a saint really is: a sinner—saved by grace!

Thank You, Father, for giving me what I need to live a life pleasing to You. Amen. 

Read and reflect on Romans 7:7–8:17.

From God, Me, & a Cup of Tea, Vol. 3 © 2019 Michele Huey. All rights reserved.