On The (Sometimes) Difficulty of Accepting Grace

There's a kind of person who'll say she knows she's a sinner saved by grace, but then work her fingers to the bone in such a way that it sure as anything looks like she feels she still has to earn it.
There's a kind of person who, though she's believed in and followed and served the God of illogical forgiveness all her life, though she spends her days telling people (and legitimately believes) that no sin is so great that you are beyond the grace of the God who made them, at the end of the day, though she'll never own to it, feels like that God could love and forgive anyone but her.
There's a kind of person who, after all these years, still sometimes has a hard time accepting grace.
"You refuse forgiveness, like it's something to be earned," or so the song goes.
Sometimes, I'm this kind of person.
Good news? I'm not the only one.
There's an army of us, men and girls who can forgive anyone, extend grace to anyone, believe that God could love anyone, except for themselves. This is sin, it is doubting God's love, it is to say "the infinity of God's grace and power ends here." And there's a kind of pride in this, too, that will not be seen by the untrained eye, but that quietly sits on the heart whispering 'any sin but mine.' And it's often those of us who have been in Christ's camp the longest, who have the fewest scars from their days before salvation, who were saved out of the sins of a child, who have this difficulty hanging onto the reality of grace. It's those of us who have been the Elder Brother far more often than the Prodigal who stray into this way of thinking: not careening wildly off of the correct theological path, but slowly and by degrees until they find themselves far from home without ever having decided to leave.
The good news? There's still hope. And the grace of the God of unfathomable forgiveness has no limits, no final straw.
There's one effective weapon against lies, and it's truth. The belt of truth buckled around our waist to hold everything together and to keep us firmly in place.
Truth is the things we've known all along: You, child, are not stronger than God. You could not commit a sin so grand as to shock or push away the love that ascended Calvary. Even the quiet, creeping sins you hide cannot stand before the light of the love that conquered death. You are a child of the risen Savior, bought with blood and made right before the Father. You. Stand. Forgiven. Loved. Grace has found you and made you new. Now go and sin no more.