This is Amazing Grace

We come to faith, assured that in Jesus our sins are forgiven… that He has taken on his shoulders the punishment of everything we have ever done… and that if we believe we will have eternal life… 

but as I sang"This is  Amazing Grace" during worship at church a few Sundays back I came to realize there was another side to this…if he took all of our sin…he took all of the sin that others have directed our way, he took their sin, the stuff that hurt us along the way… the stuff that has sat heavy in the background of my life, and of your life, was also taken on deck by Jesus in our place 

And in return he gave us Himself

…this is amazing grace… for me this was one of those ah-hah moments… 

I knew that God wanted me to repent of my attitudes to those who have hurt me and forgive them, but sometimes that doesn't get any traction.  Many authors talk of the need to seek Jesus’s healing for the deep wounds because he loves us, but this was the realization that turned it all real, and made it make sense, he not only took my sin. but every wrong deed real or perceived directed against me…because he took my place in terms of what others would do to me as well as what I would have done to others, he took the pain...and left me free to take on board what He, my amazing totally good, unconditionally loving God would have had me receive from HIs hand instead.  

It made sense that through him  in the here and now there is healing for all the stuff we carry, and hide and use as a reason to not trust God.

This is amazing grace.