Apparently a woman in Cleveland recently made a really bad choice while driving.  And as a consequence, a local judge sentenced her to hold up a sign at a busy intersection, declaring that she was an idiot.  Now you may think that’s a great idea, or you may think it’s a bad idea, but here’s what I think…

I think that we’ve all made bad choices at some point.  (Maybe you didn’t drive onto the sidewalk to avoid stopping for the school bus like the woman above did, but admit it, you’ve made some clunkers.)  And I for one am extremely glad that I don’t have to parade around in public with a poster scrawled with my mistakes.  I am extremely glad that God gives me a different option; the option of grace.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.  (Eph. 2:8)

Grace means I don’t have to bear the full weight of my mess.  Grace means that my identity is not that of someone who made stupid choices.  Grace means that I don’t have to shuffle around in shame.  Grace means I’m not sentenced to hold the idiot sign.

We could all fill a shopping cart full of posters with the mistakes we made.  But today, by the grace of God, we can give thanks for Jesus Christ, the one who allows us to put down the sign, and take up the cross, and follow him into a life of hope and transformation!

-Pastor Mark