Grace Sets Me Free From My Misery

Grace Sets Me Free From My Misery

Sin is no longer your master, for you are no longer subject to the law, which enslaves you to sin. Instead, you are free by God’s grace. –Romans 6:14

In the city of São José dos Campos, Brazil, there is a prison run by two Christians. Chuck Colson wrote about it: “When I visited Humaita I found the inmates smiling—particularly the murderer who held the keys, opened the gates and let me in. My guide escorted me to the notorious prison cell once used for torture. Today, he told me, that block houses only a single inmate. Slowly he swung open the massive door, and I saw the prisoner in that cell: a crucifix, beautifully carved by the Humaita inmates—the prisoner Jesus, hanging on a cross. ‘He’s doing time for the rest of us,’ my guide said softly.”

We often talk about grace as “undeserved favor,” and it is. But it is more than that. Undeserved favor is when someone hands us free tickets to a football game, but that is really just generosity. Grace is favor against merit, favor that goes against what we truly deserve. Mercy says we don’t have to do the time. Grace takes our place in the prison cell to do the time we deserve. This is what makes grace amazing.

Grace sets us free from the misery of our painful past and the mastery of sin; it frees us from sin’s power to keep hurting us and making our lives miserable. Often we think we are pursuing a joyful freedom only to find ourselves unhappily bound by our bad choices. We just want to exercise self-control and instead find ourselves slaves to an eating disorder; we just want to loosen up and instead find ourselves addicted to alcohol or pills; we just want to spruce the place up and instead find ourselves drowning in debt. Into this prison of our own making, the grace of God appears in the person and work of Jesus. Every taste of goodness and every breath of freedom we enjoy is a gift of grace.

Grace not only sets us free, it shows us how to live in true freedom and points us toward a future to live for. Grace teaches us “to turn from godless living and sinful pleasures. We should live in this evil world with self-control, right conduct, and devotion to God, while we look forward to that wonderful event when the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be revealed” (Titus 2:12-13).

Gracious Lord, I see you in the cell, upon the cross, bearing my shame and punishment so I can be free. How I want my life to be worthy of such a sacrifice. Show me how to walk in this generous freedom you give by grace.

DIGGING DEEPER