Daily Nuggets of Grace Part 2 Unashamed!Uzorak

Exchanging Shame for Glory!

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. What a fantastic and utterly unfair trade!

As a kid, I tried to trade baseball cards with my friends. We laid them all out on the floor to see what each other owned, and then we tried to negotiate a deal: "I'll give you these two for that one." Ultimately, I never traded any because I was afraid of loss.

That is precisely the opposite of the trade God offers us. We gain everything while He absorbs all the loss. He looked at us in our spiritually dead, personally broken state of being and gently declared, "I'll take all your sin; you can have My righteousness.”

God's trade offer is even more fantastic than taking away all our sins. Second Corinthians 5:21 says God made Jesus to be sin for us. At the cross, not only did Jesus take away our sins, but Jesus was said to be our sin. With His death, Jesus eliminated our sins. With its elimination, the grounds for shame are gone.

Shame dwells with a belief that says, "There is something wrong with me. I'm a problem." But notice what we gain through this unfair exchange that God initiated: in Him, we become the righteousness of God.

Jesus wiped out our shame. Therefore, we stand new, clean, presentable, free, and confident. This is not because of a change in our behavior but because of a fundamental change in our being. A transformation has happened deep within us, at the center of our identity.

Jesus became my sin and shame. I have become the righteousness of God.

Some of us, however, are reluctant to accept this trade. We feel we don't deserve it. We know we are forgiven and saved by grace, but we continue to hold on to our shame.

Listen to what 2 Corinthians 6:1 urges: don't receive God's grace as something that is here one moment, then dissipates like smoke a few minutes later. Don't say, "My sins are forgiven; I am saved by grace…but my shame remains.”

Now is the time of God's favor, the day of salvation. Our sins are gone, and we are free from shame.

Reflect and Respond

Identify the things that make you feel shame. Reject those things before God in prayer.

Pray

Lord, today I receive your trade offer. Jesus became my sin and destroyed it on the cross, eliminating my shame. I confess I have held onto shame. (Tell God precisely what brings you shame.)Today, I reject this shame and release it to you. I wholeheartedly embrace the truth that I am now righteousness in Christ. Amen!