Total Acceptance -- Proof Part I

Edward certainly would have had several good reasons to reject Vivian. She was socially beneath him, uneducated, and morally deficient. Yet, he accepted her just as she was. Jesus does the same for you.

Let’s look, in John chapter 4, at the way Jesus responded to the Samaritan woman he met by the well. He would have had three good reasons to ignore or rebuff this woman:

• First, she was a woman.
• Second, she was a Samaritan.
• Third, and most importantly, this woman had had multiple husbands, so she would have been considered far beneath Jesus on a moral level.

Jesus had already been criticized for spending time with tax collectors and sinners, and here he was again talking to a sinful woman. It was not that He didn’t know her shameful past. He knew it fully and wanted to befriend her anyway.

“The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.” John 4:18

Jesus did not care that she was from a culture that was considered beneath him. Jesus did not care that she was a female, considered less important than a man, and most poignantly, Jesus did not let her sinful history stand in the way of the total and unconditional acceptance he offered her. Every woman deeply desires the security of knowing that her man can handle knowing the worst about her, and will love her anyway.

That is exactly what we have in Jesus.

We can be sure because this was not an isolated incident. Jesus responded in a similar way to another woman caught in the very act of adultery. She was dragged by an angry group of Pharisees to the temple courts where Jesus was teaching. They made her stand before everyone and announced that the Law called for her to be stoned to death for committing adultery. (Talk about public humiliation!)

Jesus did not condemn her as they expected Him to. He simply said to the men who were about to stone her:

“If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” John 8:7

On yet another occasion in Luke chapter 7 Jesus praised the woman who washed his feet with her tears and her hair. While the self-righteous religious leaders looked down their noses at her, “a sinful woman”, and criticized Jesus for allowing her to even touch Him, Jesus praised and exalted her.

“Her many sins have been forgiven--for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.” Luke 7:47

Do you want someone who knows everything about you, your imperfections, and your past, but who accepts you unconditionally anyway?

I know I do.

That Person for me is Christ Jesus.

You see, no matter how vast our sin is, no matter how much baggage we bring to Him, his grace will always exceed it.

“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.” Ephesians 1:7-8

That verse is so precious to me because it proves He knows everything about me, and accepts me just the way I am, warts and all! He accepts you just the way you are too. In fact, he lavishes his grace on us.

Lavish is an extravagant word that means generous, abundant and plentiful – in other words – more than enough grace to cover all our past, all our baggage, all our secret shame and sin. His grace is more than enough to cover our inadequacies.

Precious Reader: When you read, "No matter how much baggage we bring to Him, His grace will always exceed it." Do you feel relieved? grateful? sceptical? something else?