somewhere between silence & screaming

Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.- Hebrews 4:16

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. - 2 Corinthians 3:17

See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter. - 2 Corinthans 7:11

On Sunday night, we prayed for about an  hour as a youth group.  It was pretty incredible.  As we laid everything out before God, the three verses above kept coming back to me, and I felt so overwhelmed by their magnititude.

For no other reason than curiosity, I’ve been wikipediaing other major religions lately to learn more about them.  I know wikipedia isn’t superb at explaining religions, but something that has stuck out to me is how little confidence is available in other faiths from my perspective.  (If any Muslims are reading this, I’ve done enough research to understand that when you’re questioned for bad deeds and rewarded for good in Islam, there’s a chance you’ll be punished temporarily, but painfully, in hell as punishment for having an abundance of bad deeds or insincere faith, but eternal hell is reserved for complete nonbelievers.  Confuses me a bit, but not so much that I need any “We’re not about deeds!” comments…) 

Basically in the major religions I’ve looked at, there is a sense of “Oh crap, was I good enough to reach the next level?” when you die. 

It just makes me feel thankful to God and Christ my Savior that I don’t have to fret over that.  There is no cosmic scale with some kind of dreadful punishment if I wasn’t good enough.  There’s peace in knowing perfection is unattainable for me, so I can’t ever work my way into equality or favor with God.  But what’s impossible for me is possible with Christ.  That’s comforting to me.  There is freedom in that.  I can approach God’s throne with confidence because I fully trust that the one sitting at God’s right hand, my incredible Jesus, is advocating for me.  I don’t have to have a magic number of good deeds to receive grace.  I just have to have faith that I am who He says I am, He is who He says He is, and He’s doing what He promised He would.  That faith changes everything.  That faith leads me to follow by doing good for His glory.

I’m not doing a good job at expressing my awe at the magnitude of that and what it means for my life.  So maybe just go reread the 3 Bible verses again… Their implications for us are seriously amazing.