A couple of weeks ago I was caught up in a conversation with a group of people which left me wondering if they had really grasped the Good News of the Gospel at all. Their point of the conversation was all about sin and how dreadful the world is and what sinners we are. To me it seemed that their focus was on the need to be punished by God for our sinfulness. I was asking about redemption, salvation and the fact that we are loved by God, but it seemed to fall on deaf ears.
As I thought about it over the following few days, I remembered something I had written out in a kind of journal while at the seminary in the early 1970s. I share it with you in this newsletter as it helped me to understand the nature of God, and God’s acceptance of us. I am sorry I cannot remember who the writer of this was.
“We are not permitted to nurse a sense of guilt; we must fully and completely accept and embrace God’s forgiveness and love. Guilt feelings and inferiority feelings before God are expressions of selfishness and self-centredness; we give greater importance to our little sinful self than to God’s immense and never ending love. We must surrender our guilt and inferiority to Him. His goodness is greater than our badness. We must accept God’s joy in loving and forgiving us. It is a healing grace to surrender our sinfulness to His mercy.”
The Good News is that God’s goodness is greater than we can ever begin to imagine or fear to believe. Our challenge is to grow humbly in acceptance of God’s immense love for us in a way that both honours the goodness of God and, in humility, allows us to be forever grateful for that goodness.
Archbishop Dew is the Archbishop of Wellington New Zealand
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