December 8

The law came in so that the trespass would increase; but where sin increased, grace increased all the more, — Rom 5:20 BSB

To truly understand grace reigning over sin, and its abundance in response to the depths of our iniquity, we must be led by God into the depths of our own fall. We need God to reveal to us the secrets of our hearts, to bring us to a place of distress because of our sin and the idolatry of our fallen nature. And even when we try our hardest, sin still works within us, reigns over us, and abounds. We are brought to a place of soul poverty, helplessness, and misery, until we cast ourselves down at His mercy. That’s when we begin to see and feel the reign of grace—quickening our souls, delivering us from the wrath to come, and preserving us from the power of evil.

We see that grace overflows, even more so than sin abounds in our hearts. As it flows through the channel of the Savior’s sufferings, grace will never abandon those it has touched until it brings them into eternal life. If this truth doesn’t stir your soul to praise and bless God, nothing will! But until we've truly experienced the depths of our sin, until we've groaned and cried under the weight of guilt, we can’t fully know this. It's one thing to learn it from a book or a minister, but it’s something entirely different to learn it in the depths of a troubled heart, through God's own teaching. Only when God applies these truths to our hearts with His own power do we truly know them and find the comfort that only He can give.