I have parts of my story that I am not proud of. As vocal as I have been about God’s goodness and forgiveness and power, I am still very much so in the process of still discovering areas of my own life where I hold onto shame.

I have been holding onto shame over some of the worst things I have done for a long time. Despite acknowledging that God could forgive those things, I was still attempting to serve some sort of penance for what I had done by still holding onto the shame I felt.

God is a God of redemption. There is no need to hold onto that shame. In fact, we are called NOT to hold onto shame. In shame, the enemy finds power.

What I have done is ugly. It is sin. There is no dancing around that.

What I have done is now erased.

The whole entire hope of the gospel is that God cleared the score. He took the total price for our sins - what we have done, what we are doing, and what we will do. You will always be more sinful than you realize, and His grace will always be greater than you can comprehend.

We are called to BOAST in our weakness and sin because THAT is where God’s power shines the most. The worst thing you have ever done has no hold on you when you give it over to God. The things I have considered as evidence I was a “bad Christian” are the exact things I should be shouting about because they show why I need Christ.

When we find our salvation in God, He doesn’t see those sins. He isn’t looking at you and seeing what you did last year or even last night. He isn’t disappointed in your failings. He isn’t disgusted by who you are.

He looks on you and sees clean.

He looks on you and sees pure.

He looks on you and sees holy.

He looks on you and sees Jesus.

We are more undeserving of that gift than we could possibly begin to imagine. In my 20s I have already been humbled over and over again at His mercy on me, and I realize I haven’t even begun to understand. We will never be able to grasp His grace. But when we taste that - when we feel the freedom that comes with the most broken and despicable parts of us being wiped clean - we should be SHOUTING with joy. That gift should be pouring out of our mouths to everyone we meet because how unbelievably good is it to have a God who takes that away from us. We feel shame because we know that we deserve death for our sins. We know that feeling in the pit of our stomachs that tells us we crossed a line. In the moment sin might feel good, but it always leaves us with a bitter taste after because we were never meant to live this way.

God’s gift should be pouring out of us every day. Not in a sense of a chore. Not because that’s what “good Christians” do (hint: there is no such thing as a good Christian). But because when we actually have experienced that undeserved redemption there is nothing worth stopping us from screaming how good He is.

You are not defined by your sin.

You are called redeemed.