Ill-deserving

As I sat in my comfy bed all snuggled up in my pj's, I had an overwhelming urge to start a blog. Where did this urge come from, you ask? I have no idea. Ideas raced through my head and there was no way I was going to be able to sleep because my mind was wide awake.

I ran downstairs, grabbed my dad's laptop, settled back in bed, and began to think of name ideas. What would I name this ingenious blog that probably a grand total of 7 people will ever read? I tossed around several ideas and decided that I wanted it to have something to do with the word "sinners". So I opened a new tab and went to one of my favorite websites, thesaurus.com. I searched "sinners" hoping to find some interesting, unique synonym to my, oh so, creative idea. What I found was definately unique and absolutely intersting. On the screen in front of me were words like delinquent, hooligan, thug, and my personal favorite, slippery eel. As entertaining as all this was, none of these words really portrayed the true meaning of sinners. Instead they dumbed it down and the essence of the word was weakened.

I have often heard pastors preach about how we are un-deserving sinners and we don't deserve any of the blessings we have been given. However, in listening to men like Mark Driscoll and John Piper, I have come to realize that this statement is only partly true. No, we do not deserve ANY of the blessings we are given, but we are not UN-deserving sinners. Instead, we are ILL-deserving sinners. Because of our unthinkable sin and delibrate rebelion against God, we deserve nothing but to suffer in the firey furnaces of hell. We don't deserve nothing, we deserve agony.

There is light at the end of this tunnel, however, because our story does not stop there. Because God loved His children and because of His overwhelming mercy (not getting what we do deserve) and grace (getting what we do not deserve), Christ paid the ultimate sacrifice for us. He suffered. He bore our punishment. He died. And as a result, we are free. We are forgiven. And we can spend eternity with God.

There are many temptations in the christian life but some of the hardest to deal with are not losing sight on what Christ did for us and on what wretched sinners we truly are. We are saved by the grace of God from hell. Hence,

The Ill-deserving.