WHAT'S YOUR STORY?

A few years back, in a Ladies’ Bible Study that I was in, the question was asked of one of the women, what’s your story? I was thinking about that the other day and how we all have a story. Some stories are mild, some stories are heartbreaking and some stories are horrendous. Some people are more than willing to tell their stories and some people are so ashamed of their story that they would never reveal it. Simply because we are human we are all in the last category. All Christians have the same shameful story. Oh you might say, “But, Cindy, I grew up in church, I never did anything bad, and I have always been a good person.” But, my response to you is that no, you were filthy as the dirtiest rags, but you’ve been washed clean by the blood of Jesus Christ. All stories are the same; we’ve all been saved by grace.

Saved by grace. That means God in his awesome love for us, reached down into the muck and mire and pulled us up out of the slime pits of Hell. When we accepted Christ as our Savior, our death sentence was repealed, we’ve been cleaned up, given pure white robes, a crown has been placed on our heads and we have been given an inheritance. We are now called children of God and Jesus calls us Friend. What I would like to know is if we’ve all come from the same black hole and been given the free gift of life by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and we call ourselves Christians because we are now Jesus followers, then why do we try to tear each other down? Aren’t we told to build each other up? I’m not saying all Christians do this, but I am saying that the church (in general) tends to kill it’s wounded.

Surfing the internet, I ran across a fictional story that illustrates this. A girl with a very “bad” past accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior and she became a hard worker and respected person in the church. Over time, she and the pastor’s son got engaged. When the church found out about this they called a meeting to discuss it. The congregation believed that this girl was not good enough for a pastor’s son because of her colorful background. After dragging up her past and forcing her to relive it, the pastor’s son who couldn’t stand to see his fiancé crying anymore stood up and said “what is really on trial here? Is it my fiancé’s past or whether or not the sacrifice of Jesus is really enough to redeem someone, forever?” At that point, the whole church realized that Jesus IS enough and they all realized that they were “killing their wounded.”

What I am saying to you is that if you have accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior then you are one of the walking wounded, your story is the same as my story and everyone one else’s. Before you were saved by grace, there was no light in you at all, nothing, total darkness. In fact, all humans are responsible for nailing Jesus to the cross. But because of God’s amazing grace, you are the light of the world, an example of Christ’s love; you have the Holy Spirit in you! God didn’t call us to compare sins. We’ve been called to lovingly hold each other accountable, to sharpen each other as iron sharpens iron and to build God’s Kingdom together. As Christians, we are all held to a higher standard.

“For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." Heb 8:12 (NIV)