Grace is messy! God’s grace reaches down into our messy lives and transforms us from the inside out. This only happens when we embrace God’s grace. Our problem is that we are comfortable with a domesticated grace based on our own performance or effort. The truth is that God’s grace is extended to us regardless of our current condition, regardless of where we are, regardless of our own depravity. That’s true grace. That’s uncensored grace.

I love the way Jud Wilhite defines Uncensored Grace in his book from a few years ago titled Stripped – Uncensored Grace on the Streets of Vegas:

Uncensored grace is what you get from a loving God when the religious types have gone home, and every last hope for own effort has blown up in your face. Uncensored means there is no formula or membership or performance that stands between you and God’s goodness.

He goes on to explain the result of embracing this kind of uncensored grace:

When I realized the value I have in God’s eyes, it changed me. I began to reimagine myself as one loved deeply by God, irrespective of what I felt. I am loved before, during, and after my sin. I am loved when I feel unworthy. I am loved in spite of myself. I wanted approval from others to validate my worth, I wanted to show everyone I could make something of myself, I wanted to become someone. But that day I realized I would never find what I searched for because I already had it. I had to personally embrace God’s grace in a life-transforming way.

Have you embraced God’s uncensored grace or are you still trying to win His approval through your own effort?