Jesus Calls You Out of Your Sin
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2.4-6
It has been said, ‘everything in life is a process.’ If you have ever tried to give up a habit, be it: smoking, biting your nails, or saying um too much, you know this to be true. You cannot just decide to be better and then be fixed. Cold turkey turns to relapse in a short time. Nothing good comes without your hard work.
Except one thing. Redemption is not a process. It happens the moment that God chooses to rip out your heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh. In one moment you are dead in your sin; your life has no hope. In the next moment you have been made alive together with Christ. You have been raised up in order to share in His glory (by proxy).
There are plenty of people that will give you a list of things that you need to do to be a Christian. Or a process to walk through. Or a system to ascribe to. This reinforces the idea that you need to make yourself right before you can come to God. But God does not want you to come to Him in your worthiness, listing out all the reasons why He should accept you. God accepts you because He is rich in mercy. It is by His grace you have been saved. Rather than listing your accomplishments, you must come to Jesus wearing your sin on your sleeve, crying out, be merciful to me, a sinner! (Luke 18.13)
Seeing the saving grace of Jesus will transform you. There is a process to be done, but it happens because you have been redeemed, not so that you can be. You are a sinner. And you have been saved by grace.