The Art Of CelebrationSample

Boldly I Approach

We've all felt it. That sinking feeling in your gut when you know you've done something wrong.

A quick lie, a word spoken in anger, or giving into temptation over and over and over again.

Maybe it's sweet for a moment, but the crash of regret and guilt is immediate, often leaving us feeling unworthy and unclean.

The power of guilt and condemnation can be crippling. If you've ever seen the "The Da Vinci Code," you'll remember the assassin character who pleads with God for forgiveness by inflicting physical punishment on himself. This might (and should) sound like a crazy form of prayer, but we do the emotional equivalent and psychologically "self-harm," preaching the "anti-gospel" of condemnation to ourselves.

As though feeling really bad about our sin is enough to save us, when nothing but the blood of Jesus is enough.

Or, maybe we're in hiding.

Adam and Eve's first response in the garden was to hide after they had sinned. And we've been hiding ever since.

Most of us have taken forbidden fruit and we know it. This insecurity keeps us from coming before God.

But that isn't how people who have been freed by the Gospel approach God.

Yes, there is remorse for sin.

But the heart that Christ sets free lives in celebration - not condemnation.

The fact is, we're right to feel in our bones like sin is meant to be punished. And it was… on a cross, once and for all, for all of eternity. Jesus took our broken past and our messed up future and bore the wrath of the Father so that we can approach the throne of God with confidence.

Your sin no longer separates you from running into the arms of the Father, from running home.

The only appropriate response to this grace is pure joy.

Let's focus today on praising the one who made an end to our sin rather than focusing on our cross-erased failures.

Let's celebrate.

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