While we were still sinners

During the course of LYC, the phrase came up again and again, Romans 5:8 says "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Now I'm sure I realized what this meant, and I'm confident that during my schooling and many years of being a Christian I was fully aware of the doctrine of Christ death as a substitutionary sacrifice. But not until Sid made a small comment did I really understand that passage. See I have been a "Christian" all my life, born and raised into a bible believing church attending family, so as much as a blessing that has been it means that I have no recollection of a night and day difference of me prior to Christ, and me after meeting Christ. So to talk about how Christ died to set us free from an alternative lifestyle never really connected with me. As far back as my memory goes (which at times isn't that far) I have always had a "Christian" lifestyle. So to talk about a lifestyle of sin, death and no hope doesn't really resonate with who I am. I have always known hope, I have always known Christ, and experienced his reality. So to say that while we were dead in sin Christ died for us, yes I understand that sin is death and that we all have sin, but I have always known hope to counter balance the deep depression that comes from the guilt of sin. But instead of imagining this verse as it applies to a lifestyle, we picture that particular sin we struggle with, what if we imagine that time when we committed the crime, when we turned from God and said I know better, what if we look at the very moment the precise second we turned our back on God, and then say for that very moment, that very spot in time, that act, Christ died. And then that got me thinking, if at our very moment of least worth to God, the time when we are least deserving of anything from God, when we are virtually worthless to the King, God's perspective says, the price He is willing to pay, is a handsome ransom. The ultimate price, the life of His perfect Son. Imagine then how much God loves and values each one of us when we are not in the moment of sin, but in the moment of triumph, (obviously this is pushing personification on God who is beyond human conception, and cannot be compared to a scale of Love that we may have) if our worth when we are worthless is Christ, what then is our worth when we feel the loving embrace of God the father, when we are worship him in mind body and spirit? Indeed, God does demonstrate his love for us, while we were worthless; God still valued us enough to send his Son to die in our place. What love indeed.

"All of my sin is gone
All of my guilt is gone
All of my shame is gone. You took it all

So I'll stand in the power of your cross"

-Caleb Delamont, You took it all