CHAPTER 2: THE GRACE-SHAPED LIFE 1. Jim Reimann, Victor Hugo's Les Misérables (Nashville: Word Publishing, 2001), 16. 2. Ibid., 29—31.

I have a sin nature. So do you.

The heart of the human problem is the heart of the human. And God's treatment is prescribed in John 3:16.

Before presenting the grace of God,we must understand the wrath of God.

God's mercy does not make sin tolerable; it makes sin forgivable. The proud and the depraved alike must kneel at the same feet for mercy. For those willing, God turns sin's empty cistern into a deep wellspring overflowing with love.

Oh, from what heights of blessing it is possible for a man to fall! To what depths of sin a man can descend, even with all that spiritual background! The higher the pinnacle of blessing, authority, and publicity he has attained by grace, the deeper and more staggering can be his collapse. There is never a day in any man's life but that he is dependent upon the grace of God for power and the blood of Jesus for cleansing.

God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23

See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no root of bitterness springs up, causing trouble and by it, defiling many. Hebrews 12:15

We're too flawed and too challenged by history, circumstance, and chemistry to hoard grace for long.

There is certainly no righteous man on the earth who does good and never sins. Ecclesiastes 7:20

Man is weak, greedy, craven, lustful, prey to every species of vice and depravity. He will lie, steal, cheat, murder, melt down the very statues of the gods and coin their gold as money for whores. This is man.