Now would be a good moment to start telling ourselves the truth.
I can no more make myself acceptable to God by right living or good choices than I can learn to levitate, fly unaided through the solar system, or pick strawberries on the moon.
The myth of legalism fools us into assuming that there are just a few steps left between our holiness and the holiness of God. It grossly underestimates both God’s essential goodness and our essential lostness. Oddly, legalism teaches us to lie to ourselves and God about the real picture of our lives.
Grace, on the other, nail-pierced hand, can tell the awful truth about how far we fall short of heaven’s ideal. Jesus’ holiness covers all our lostness and our wretchedness. And for a change, we need not cringe, for we are loved no less for being sinners, nor ever held at arm’s length.
No, we are pulled into a grace embrace so kind and so forgiving that fear and willfulness begin to disappear. We start becoming like the love that saves us.
So stay in grace.