I read recently that we will only truly know God's grace when we stand before Him at judgement and our sins are pardoned by Jesus's blood. I can see where we would feel truly exhonerated at judgement, but I have felt God's grace immensely here on this rotten earth. To really understand God's forgivness and grace, one has to be in need of it. Sure, no one is perfect, but spending the majority of my life as a "good" person, I never truly expererienced God's grace until I really screwed up. If you've been there, you know exactly what I mean.
There is also the danger of feeling like you really are a "good" person and you don't need Jesus's forgiveness. This is very dangerous, because relying on your own strength and thinking you could never fall for Satan's deceptions is prideful. You may have heard, "Pride comes before the fall." (That comes from Proverbs 16:18.) You are going on your merry way, thinking you are all good, and slowly Satan works his way into your mind and your thoughts. You allow thoughts of actions you would never really do, and you justify your thinking; "Oh, there are people a lot worse than me out there." A wise lady I know once said, "Where your mind goes, your feet will quickly follow." The next thing you know, you are saying, "How in the world did I get into this mess!"
Feeling God's forgiveness and love is a feeling like no other when one of His children has been separated from Him for a time.
I love this scripture from Romans 6:
Slaves to Righteousness
15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
16 Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey— whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.
18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
19 I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.
20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.
21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!
22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
16 Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey— whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.
18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
19 I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.
20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.
21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!
22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Thank you, Lord, for the forgiveness and mercy you have shown to me, a sinner.
