I had just finished a day of Bible teaching and I was getting ready to head home when I noticed a young woman hovering in the back of the room as if she wasn’t sure what to do next. I walked over to her, saying, “Thank you so much for coming.”
“No, thank you!” she said. “And . . . I want to give you something.” She handed me a bracelet with five rows of silver and gold beads.
“Thank you. It’s lovely.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I’ve worn that bracelet for a long time to cover this,” she said, pushing up the left sleeve of her sweater. “I tried to kill myself a few years ago. I’ve been so ashamed, so I wore the bracelet to cover my scar.”
I hugged her tight. “Why are you giving this to me now?”
“Because I don’t have to be ashamed anymore! I finally got it today. I don’t have to be ashamed anymore!”
God had opened her heart to the radical grace of His gospel and the reality of His all-encompassing love. In Him, we can let go of whatever we have done or left undone, whatever we regret saying or wish we’d said. Once we are in a relationship with Christ Jesus, He wants us to move on, forgiven for our sin and free of any shame. But all too often sticky shame makes more sense to us. We have done something bad, and we feel as if we are bad. We forget that on the cross Jesus dealt such shame a deathblow so that you and I can be free.
When Paul wrote to believers in Rome, his heart was ablaze with God’s overwhelming love. As he spelled out its lavish depth and breadth, he spoke to those hearers who believed that whatever they had done was too much for God to forgive. Hear with your heart Paul’s bold and confident declaration in Romans 8:38–39: absolutely nothing can separate you from God’s love. You are loved and you are forgiven. Go in peace.
There’s no fine print: absolutely nothing can separate you from God’s love.
I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38–39 ESV
How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
Psalm 36:7 ESV
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.
Psalm 51:1 NIV
I pray that out of [the Father’s] glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:16–19 NIV
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!
1 John 3:1 NIV
Five Minutes in the Word 