New Morning Mercies #117

If you have quit being defensive and are now willingly and humbly approachable, you know that transforming grace has visited you.

It started in the garden of Eden, and we have been committed to it ever since. We all point the finger of blame and we all work to convince ourselves that the party to blame is not us. Adam pointed his finger at Eve, and Eve pointed her finger at the Serpent; neither one of them accepted blame. Yes, it is true: there have been generations and generations of finger pointers ever since.

You see, when you’ve done something wrong, it’s not natural to look inside yourself for the cause. Sin makes us all shockingly self-righteous. It makes us all committed self-excusers. Somehow, some way, we all buy into the delusion that our biggest problems live outside us, not inside us. We all have very active inner lawyers, who rise to our defense in the face of any accusation of wrong. We are all very skilled at presenting the logic of the argument that what we have done says more about the flawed people and dysfunctional things around us than it does about us. When our consciences bother us because of the faithful convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit, we are all tempted to dodge blame by locating the cause elsewhere. We all tend to be much more concerned about the sin of others than we are about our own, but, John says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8).

Because accepting blame is not natural, it takes rescuing, transforming grace to produce a humble, willing, broken, self-examining, help-seeking heart. Only divine grace can soften a person’s heart. Only grace can help your eyes to see what you need to see. Only grace can decimate your defenses and lead you to confess. Only grace can cause you to quit pointing your finger and to run to your Redeemer for his forgiveness and delivering power. Only grace can enable you to forsake your own righteousness and find your hope and rest in the righteousness of another. Only grace can make you more grieved over your sin than about the sins of others. Only grace can make you accept your need for grace. Only grace can cause you and me to abandon our confidence in our own performance and place our confidence in the perfectly acceptable righteousness of Jesus Christ. Only grace can cause us to put our hope in the only place where hope can be found—in God and God alone. Every moment of defensiveness argues how much the grace is still needed.

For further study and encouragement: 1 John 1:5–10