The last two days I've shared stories about God changing the lives of convicts. Isn't that nice? Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like...those terrible sinners. There's some truth in that very real, very honest reaction I have. You know the feeling? Here and now many of us really are better citizens than the men and women in prison. But that's here and now. What about when you and I enter eternity, when you come before the One who will judge you without comparing you to others?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, One extreme thing must be said. To forego self-conceit...means...to consider oneself the greatest of sinners. This arouses all the resistance of the natural man, but also that of the self-confident Christian. It sounds like an exaggeration, like an untruth. Yet even Paul said of himself that he was the foremost of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15); he said this specifically at the point where he was speaking of his service as an apostle. If my sinfulness appear to me to be in any way smaller or less detestable in comparison with the sins of others, I am still not recognizing my sinfulness at all. My sin is of necessity the worst, the most grievous, the most reprehensible. (Life Together, p. 96)
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