Jesus consolidates our baggage.

2 Corinthians 12:9
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.”

I have done a lot of bad things. I came to Christ when I was 22 after a deployment to Kuwait (a long story for another day). By then, I had lived a life filled with anger, sin, misguided decisions, anxiety, and more regret than I knew what to do with. When I think about who I was before Christ, I picture myself as a passenger getting ready to board a plane with six overstuffed bags. The flight attendant politely tells me that I am only allotted two bags. How on Earth was I supposed to board the plane? My bags did not meet the boarding requirements!

God’s grace. That’s how. 

The word grace appears roughly 170 times in the Kings James Version of the Bible because God wants us to understand something about his character. The Bible even closes with these words: “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with everyone. Amen.” (Revelation 22:21. CSB). Grace is not God pretending our sin never happened; it is the freedom from the penalty of our sins. It is unearned because of what Jesus accomplished on the cross. Grace “is a gift from God—not from works, so no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9 CSB). God tells us in 2 Corinthians 12:9, God’s grace allows His perfectness to be reconciled with our sinful nature because He is perfected in our weakness. This means that weakness is not the end of anyone’s story—it is the very place where God’s grace becomes visible. 

Think about every Christian you know. They are not perfect. They are far from it, actually. If I were to write a 20 page dissertation of the way I have lived my life before Christ and all the slip-ups that I have had since coming to Jesus, you might wonder how I could have the audacity to write a devotional at all. The answer isn’t that I finally became qualified. The answer is grace. It is God’s grace that frees me from a score sheet, and allows His will to be perfected by my imperfections. Grace reminds me that Jesus met the boarding requirements that I never could, and consolidated my bags. As I further my walk with Christ, I find myself laying down one bag after another—not to earn my seat on the plane, but because I have already been welcomed aboard.