Lately, I have been trying to understand God’s grace. I am really trying to wrap my head around the fact that He loves me without regard to my actions. What I mean to say is that I have been a Christian for several years, over 20 in fact, and I still have problems with sin in my life, habits which should be gone by now.

What I am trying to understand now is that my actions do not affect the way He feels about me. In Christ, I am already pleasing to Him. The death and resurrection of Jesus have made me pure and righteous in Him. The scriptures say that because of my faith in Jesus I was put to death with Him. In his death, burial, and resurrection I am included. I don’t understand it completely or I could write better about it.

I have been born again, new, a new person. However, nothing has happened to my flesh. I am alive in the Spirit, in Christ. I am not renewed or reformed. I am redeemed. I am a new person, created in the image of Christ. In Him, I am holy, pure, righteous, pleasing to God. I am one of God’s own sons. I am like Him. He is my Father.

I can’t break or nullify the covenant. It was made with Jesus. Jesus kept the law in every aspect. Then He offered his sinless life as a sacrifice for the sin of the world. So He fulfilled the requirement of death, the righteous requirement of the law against me. Now righteousness without having to keep the law can be gained by faith in Jesus Christ.

I am trying to give up trying to obey God’s law in my flesh. Somewhere in the message of the gospel is the power to live free from sin but, I think I have to let go of trying to live or become righteous, and instead, learn how to live out of the fact that in Christ I already am righteous. God is already satisfied with me. I can’t do anything to make Him love me more, or any less. There is nothing left for me to do except live freely. It’s not as easy as it sounds though.