I shall
see the woman who had an abortion and who is haunted by guilt and remorse,
but
did the best she could faced with the grueling alternatives; the businessman
besieged
by
debt who sold his integrity in a series of desperate transactions; the
insecure clergyman
addicted
to being liked, who never challenged his people from the pulpit and longed
for
unconditional
love; the sexually-abused teen molested by his father and now
selling his
body
on the street, who, as he falls asleep each night after his last
'trick', whispers the name
of
the unknown God he learned about in Sunday School; the deathbed convert
who for decades
had
his cake and ate it...broke every law of God and man, wallowed in lust
and raped the earth.
"But,
how?" we ask. Then the voice says, "They
have washed their robes and make them
white
in the blood of the lamb."
There
they are. There we are -- the multitude who so wanted to be
faithful, who at times,
got
defeated, soiled by life, and bested by trials, wearing the bloodied
garments of life's
tribulations,
but through it all, clung to the faith.
My friends, if this is not good news to you, you have never understood the gospel of grace."