I grew up with the understanding of God’s grace before I understood how desperately my heart needed it. I fully believed that He lovingly accepted me no matter what I did. I fully believed His love was unconditional, that He would never walk away from me, and that I could never be separated from His love.

After all, His unconditional love is pretty easy to believe when you feel like you deserve it.

You see, deep down, I felt strong. I felt invincible. I felt deserving of God’s love because of my good behavior and moral choices. I felt like since God was on my side, I would never fall “too” deep—that my sins would always be “small” and never “big enough” to do any real damage. My friends called me a “strong” Christian. Yes, I was a believer at a young age, but this didn’t make me stronger than any other believer. After a while, the roots of pride had spread more than I could manage on my own. I tried doing everything in my own strength–and then I would throw a blanket over all of it and try to give God the credit.

What I didn’t realize was that the moment we feel our strongest is the moment we are at our greatest weakness.

If we are able to get to a point in our lives where we are actually “strong,” then Jesus didn’t have to die; Jesus didn’t have to conquer death.  Jesus didn’t have to take the staggering weight of our sin on Himself. If we could become invincible and never fall, the gospel would mean nothing, and the gap between God’s holiness and our sinfulness would be awfully small.

“I felt like since God was on my side, I would never fall “too” deep—that my sins would always be “small” and never “big enough” to do any real damage.”

When we believe our sinfulness isn’t vast and God’s holiness isn’t great, we have elevated ourselves higher than the need of the cross.

As I allowed this gap to become entirely too small, I believed the lie that the Holy Spirit in me would create a wall against sin—that I could put myself in vulnerable situations and be strong enough to withstand anything. I imagine that David felt this way too. As the king the Lord had anointed, he was strong and powerful because of what God was doing, and he believed he could withstand the temptations that hide in isolation and vulnerability. So he stayed back while his army went to battle. He trusted himself entirely too much. And that is a scary place to be.

When I read of people in the Bible who had messed up like David, I would justify and elevate myself on a platform of pride—I figured that David had never really understood God and trusted in Him if he could still fall into as much sin as he did. I felt uneasy with David being described as “after God’s own heart” and simultaneously a murderer and adulterer. A mess-up.

Deep down inside, I believed the lie that God expects perfection out of Christians.

The uneasiness I felt from David’s life came from my misunderstanding of the gospel. I saw the gospel as a door to this certain standard of goodness and perfection, instead of seeing it as a door to an eternity lived in freedom— free of the eternal consequences of sin, but not of sin itself while still in this earthly body.

“I saw the gospel as a door to this certain standard of goodness and perfection, instead of seeing it as a door to an eternity lived in freedom…”

David experienced the believer’s battle with sin—he saw it firsthand. He experienced the earthly consequences of disobeying the Lord. He experienced the gap of God’s holiness and his own substantial sinfulness. He experienced the weight of his sin and simultaneously the weight of God’s grace. This is why he was a man after God’s own heart.

As Christians, our lives are not framed with perfection when we receive the Holy Spirit. Rather, we are framed with redemption, restoration, and the hope of heaven. We get to walk in salvation every day and grow in knowledge of God’s holiness and our sinfulness. We get to live in the gospel that is alive, active, and all-consuming. It does not end. We are not made new only one time— we are continuously being made new. We are continuously “becoming.” And although we are forgetful of whose we are and where our strength lies, God doesn’t stop working on us.

With this truth in mind, I have a better understanding of how David could be described with a true heart—that he could really be a man after God’s own heart—who is also as susceptible to moral failure as I am. Because, when I look at my own life, I see a life consumed with behavior modification and striving to keep a good “moral conscience” and reputation. But I also see a life that is covered by the cross, God’s sovereignty, and His ability to work everything for our behalf and His glory.

When I think of myself, I think of different sins than David’s, but stemming from the same roots. I see a broken believer who is in constant need of salvation. God has been in the process of making me new since I was seven years old and put my faith in Him. He will continue to make me new as I continue to mess up and be pruned into His likeness— until I am in heaven with Him and my fleshly battle with sin is gone once and for all.