The gospel is only as good as the God who asks us to believe it. 

If He’s the disappointed, vengeful deity we have pictured in our frightened imaginations, then we do well to hide, to stay away:  why would we risk ourselves with Him? 

But if Christ is, as His Word says, the Lord whose love for us survives even our worst choices and most defiant behaviors, then we may crawl out from beneath the bed and step out from the shadows. When I am loved at my lowest and embraced even at the height of my foolishness, then I can safely trust myself to grace. “By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8). 

I now believe in Him who has always—unequivocally—believed in me. So here I’ll stand—and stay in grace.