Paul shifts focus: 'You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.' The timing is strange and the recipient is specific. Not when we were good. When we were ungodly. Not when we deserved it. When we didn't.
I was an addict. I was also completely atheist. I'd rejected every spiritual instruction I was given. I was hostile to the very idea of God. By any measure, I was ungodly. And yet, somehow in the midst of my addiction, I kept thinking about Jesus. It made no sense. I had every reason to reject him. But he was there, somehow present, dying for me in my ungodliness.
I've been in recovery for six years. The gospel changed me. Not my moral reform. Not my willpower. The fact that God cared about me when I was destroying myself. That changed everything. I didn't have to clean myself up first. He died for me as I was. That's what made transformation possible. I'm not a Christian because I became good. I'm good because I'm a Christian. The order matters.
No comments yet. Be the first.