"God shewed that sin shall be no shame to man, but worship....For the soul that shall come to Heaven is precious to God, and the place so worshipful that the goodness of God suffereth never that soul to sin that shall come there without that the which sin shall be rewarded; and it is made known without end, and blissfully restored by overpassing worship."
Julian of Norwich (Ch. 38)
We tend to think of sin as something awful and shameful, something that we will always regret or have scars from in our lives. Yet Julian says that our sins will not be a shame to us at all but will be turned into honor and worth in heaven. Christ has taken all our sins away at the cross and given us His own righteousness in their place, giving us honor and worth. And this is all a free gift of grace. In heaven we will see fully how Christ changed all our sin, pain and shame into righteousness, life and bliss. And we will not be remembering our sins with shame but will be celebrating as holy saints in Christ. But that exchange isn't waiting to take place in heaven; it actually already occurred. At the cross God reconciled us to Christ, removing our sin and giving us His righteousness. Right now, even in the midst of struggles with sin, we can say, "There is no sin or shame on me, no guilt or punishment on me, for I am the righteousness of God in Christ! I am as righteous as Christ. I am given honor in Christ and I am as clean and pure as Christ." What a wonderful thing is the grace of God!
"God had Christ, who was sinless, take our sin so that we might receive God’s approval through him."
2 Corinthians 5:21 (GW)
A Prayer: Thank You for taking away all my sins and making me righteous with Your righteousness!