the Gospel amazes me...and makes me crazy

My sister, who (along with my entire family and many friends) has been a great encouragement during my break with reality, asked me if I had not only known the great forgiveness of the Gospel but also truly accepted it.

Well. It's a hard answer.

I've accepted forgiveness. By that, I mean that I know and believe that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is absolutely true-that belief in Him as Savior and Lord truly saves us from hell and despair and into newness of life with the ability to magnify God.

But, I still struggle with it. Not because I don't believe it but because I do and it is hard to deal with believing it when you know the wickedness of your own heart. The Gospel is such a huge thing and has such an ability to confound the mind that it is difficult at times to understand it...even if you believe it.

How can a good, just, righteous, holy, magnficent, creator God ever love and embrace as His son one like me-or you? It is at that point, realizing the pit of my own heart that the Gospel is the hardest and makes me upset. To know that despite myself that God loves and that is the reality of the Gospel can sometimes be bittersweet because I, by myself, can't love like that. None of us can.

Forgiveness of people (including myself) only comes through an understanding of the forgiveness of God-which results in salvation.

The grace of God truly is amazing...but it still makes me crazy. I cry with the hymnest "Be of sin the double cure, save me from its guilt and power."

-joe