Examining the"S" Word

When I spent a year at Bible college in Montana, there was a group of guys who sporadically began deep conversations in the community bathroom. How this became the meeting spot, I’m not sure, but we would sit and talk regularly about what we were learning in class. One night, I remember a friend of mine saying, “it’s just crazy that Jesus would die for us, you know?” I responded politely, but in my mind, I questioned his words. I thought it was elementary, like he was missing deeper, more advanced points from our classes. But when I left the bathroom that night, it was one of the few times I heard the form of an audible voice from God, which was the following: “Paul, you think you’re too good for God.”

It was around this time that I began to question what true faith in God looked like, and it started with admitting that I thought I was too good for God. I didn’t really understand sin, and therefore, could not understand the sacrifice that Jesus made for us. One day, a mentor of mine began explaining sin as an exchange, where you are switching out what God wants for you and doing what you want for you. And this metaphor switched a light on in my head, changing the trajectory of my life along with the many other things that happened that year. I finally recognized my own sin and came to grips with the fact that I needed God.

What I realized was that in order to be saved, we first need to know that we need saving from something. Otherwise it’s just a heartless plea and a soul-less prayer. We have to know and understand that we are sinners, that in our hearts is not yet the capacity for salvation but for damnation. It brings us to an individual reckoning, for I must accept that I, Paul, am a sinner. I’ve messed up, fallen short, and am not good enough to save myself. It’s step 1 of the gospel, and ironically, the step I struggled with the most on my path to faith.

Despite growing up in a Christian home and hearing the same, simple messages my whole life, I never thought I was that bad. I viewed sin as occasional mistakes, not evil in the face of God. It sounds despairing, but it has a good ending. Because though I am not good enough, God is. That is the beauty of the gospel, that we are sinful, but we have a God who saves. For while I may have came to grips with my sin that year, I also came to grips with another truth, which is that God’s love is greater, deeper and stronger than anything I could imagine. As Romans 5:8 says,

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”