Exposed

"In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
-1 John 4:10

Nothing I do can add to this great salvation. It's too glorious for that.
Not what I do. What He did.

For about a year now, I've been praying that by grace, God might expose me and my heart (where it doesn't trust Him). I do this for fear of that verse in the first chapter in Luke where Mary sings that "God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts." And as I prayed this last night, it wasn't until an hour or two ago that God exposed something deep deep within my soul that I had not ever had the courage to recognize and admit.

My heart believes that God loves a future version of me that knows more, has done more, that loves him more. Something still doesn't believe that God loves me right now, exactly who I am, with all my baggage and scars and "hidden" sin. And if I'm honest, something in my innermost being thinks that He only loves a future me that somehow ... mystically is some super Christian guy who knows all the theology, saves multitudes of people ranging from the ghetto to the suburbs, has all the answers to every single question, and feeds the poor daily out of sheer selfless compassion. And in hindsight I know and have seen that study of God is beautiful, feeding the poor is joyous, and loving and delighting in Him is where true living is found, but something tugs at me that these things, wonderful and life-fulfilling as they are, are not the gospel of Jesus Christ. What justifies this sinner before a holy God whose infinite perfection demands holiness is not what I've done, what I do, or what I intend to do. The gospel of Jesus Christ is what's already been done through the cross of Jesus Christ alone.

I feel as if I have to continually and violently keep preaching this to myself because my heart is continually and violently on the fringe. It always wants to believe that God will love me if ... That God will love me when ... And it fails to recognize the truth that He's already paid the price. He's 100% canceled the debt. He's completely purchased my righteousness by his blood. The deed has been done. All that I have ever done, all that I am doing and intend to do ... It's nothing because at the end of the day, I'll know that I'm a sinner. Even if everything in my vainest ambitions comes true ... Even if all my lost friends and strangers come to know Christ, it doesn't take away from the fact that I'm a sinner. And in the face of all this, in the middle of this muddle, I hear something whisper me these words:

"It is finished."
-Jesus (John 19:30)

Father, I pray that you continue to expose this wicked, rebellious, lustful, untrusting heart. Help it understand the beauty and power of the cross and what it accomplished. I'm afraid that my heart is just so arrogant and far from seeing that You love now, sinner that I am. I have trouble understanding the truth that with all the sin I commit daily, hourly, I can still be called your son. I am continually inclined to believe that You'll love when I do this, understand that, or attain this and I'm in desperate need of Your grace to keep relentlessly colliding me with the cross. Keep exposing me. I'm infinitely more proud than I know and only You can overcome it. Help me.