Ashes to Ashes: We All Fall Down
"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." Romans 3:23-24 There is something quite offensive about this verse, and many others like it. The Bible pulls no punches when it comes to our ability to fulfill God's requirements for righteousness. According to scriptures, the tattle-tale and the terrorist are united by a common bent to sin. The manipulator and the molester share the same condition. The prideful and the predator, the arrogant and the adulterer, the hypocrite and the heathen – they all suffer the same sin-induced separation from God, and they all have just as much chance to be justified by the Grace of God through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. I don't know where I got it, but somewhere in all my years of attending church, I acquired a sense that God loved me more simply because I went to church. Oh, I knew we said that Jesus loved everyone, but su