Sin Floods and Grace Overflows

“How much more will the grace and the gift overflow to the many?” (Rom 5:15)

Sin overflows the bank.  

We live in a part of the country where it often floods when it rains.  Water gushes like a mountain stream from our next door neighbor on our right into the backyard of the next door neighbor to the left -- creating temporary scenic, lakefront property.  

Often, my backyard is a water soaked spongy swamp mingled with red clay.  When I tromp to my shed, I come back with red feet -- it overflows.

Sin overflows like that.

Just yesterday, I read about a pastor who shot his wife, then killed himself this weekend during a parking lot argument shortly after she had preached an inspiring sermon.  I also read about a youth pastor behind bars who attempted to hire a hit man to knock off his senior pastor. Just google pastor in Google News and see what you will find is depressing-- plenty of evidence that sin is overflowing like raw sewage into the church.

Cathy and I recently wanted to relax and watch a wholesome series.  I googled “heartwarming, wholesome shows on Netflix '' -- and the recommendations were disappointing episodes with sin overflowing -- trash.   Sadly, this is today’s culture -- you can’t take a walk in it without getting your feet wet and mucky with the red clay of iniquity.

Of course, a look at Judges 19-21 reminds us it’s not much different now than it was back in Bible days -- sex, violence, degradation.  It is a part of the human condition -- overflowing throughout the course of history to the present day.

But Romans 5 reminds us that one man -- Jesus -- has turned the tide! Sin may overflow -- “but how much more will the grace and the gift overflow overflow to the many”?   “Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more” (Romans 5:20).

"Let us not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:21).

Life is a grace gift.  Everywhere we walk, we step in grace puddles.

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, today is a gift; that is why it is called the present”
(from an anonymous poem quoted by Joan Chittister’s Heart of Flesh, 1998, p. 129).

(photo credit: Dimitry Makeev, "Reflections in Puddles")