While most of us don’t set out to be as bad as Gru—Despicable Me’s “bad” guy— wanted to be, we sometimes get the impression that we have arrived there by the way some Christians talk.  I am always amazed when “worm” theology snags the intellect of an individual or a whole church.  I’ve been at churches where everyone is seen through the grid of “lousy sinner” rather than “redeemed saint” or “searching sinner.”  I’m grateful for Paul’s self-disclosure in Romans 7 (particularly 13-20) and his final declaration at the end of the chapter (vv. 24-25):

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

If we are made in the image of God and Christ came to redeem us back to that true humanness, then why do so many Christians force the negative side of the gospel at the expense of the glorious truth of life and victory through Jesus?  Do I know (along with most people) that in comparison to the incomparable holiness of God that I am a despicable sinner?  Yes!  But through Christ I am His own now.  No longer condemned.  Why do so many suffer condemnation from other believers when they’ve been redeemed by the same Savior? 

I suppose that issue will be with the Bride until the Groom comes for her.  If God spared no expense to rescue the despicables with love and mercy, let’s do the same with saint and sinner alike!  As No Condemnation has been written across the doorposts of the heart of those redeemed by Christ, let those words hang joyfully and triumphantly across the doorposts of our churches!

Thanks be to God through Jesus our Lord!