I keep thinking of the recent conversation I was pondering about yesterday. https://rebeccasrevels.wordpress.com/2022/08/23/pondering/ in case you missed that one. As my thoughts keep circling around what they said, all that keeps coming to me is they are leaving out one very important factor, grace. Not just any grace, but God’s grace.
A quick online search will bring up a long list of sites that explain and define as best one can, God’s grace. Examples:
https://www.gotquestions.org/grace-of-God.html
That is just three of the links, there were many others, but you get the idea.
As I ponder over what the individual I listened to shared, and they shared a lot, but the one thing I do not recall hearing was the mention of God’s grace. They spoke of falling and failing and losing salvation. They spoke of how one has to act and earn a level of forgiveness. But they never mentioned grace. How could they have not mentioned that? In all they said, and they said a lot, I never heard that word not one time. And I have replayed their soliloquy many times in my head.
Yes, they were right in the fact we are sinners, born with a sin nature. Yet as Christians, we are reborn into the family of God. Even though we are still human residing in a fallen world, we have a new heart. We have a new love, one that draws us to be different, to bring about a difference around us.
https://www.inspiredwalk.com/10638/what-does-it-mean-that-all-have-sinned-romans-323
But–even though we sin, there is this: https://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/topical-studies/the-glorious-life-altering-difference-between-grace-and-mercy.html God’s grace and mercy.
I can look back and see all the times when I have done wrong. I can see the things I still stumble on daily. But I know, because of God’s love, I am forgiven. He shows me mercy and covers me with His grace. Because He loves me, I am forgiven. Because He loves me, because I gave my life to Him, my salvation is secure, even when I stumble. I am His, my name written in the Book of Life, even when I stumble, my name remains: https://www.openbible.info/topics/no_one_will_pluck_you_out_of_my_hand
In the conversation, in their telling of what they had discovered, none of this was mentioned. Only something that sounded too much like the laws of the Old Testament, the laws meant to show humanity that it is impossible to be perfect. We simply cannot, no matter how hard we try, do this on our own. I hope and pray that while this individual does their research, they come to find what they had left out of the conversation.
Words from The Dirt Road 
Saved by grace through faith. I may have that backward. Christ is the only way.
He is indeed.