Worst Evils

"Similarly, Martin Luther was amazed and moved by this encounter, because he saw the gospel in it. This woman saw the gospel - that you're more wicked than you ever believed, but, at the same time more loved and accepted than you ever dared to hope. On the one hand, she is not too proud to accept what the gospel says about her unworthiness. She accepts Jesus' challenge. She doesn't get her back up and say, "How dare you use a racial epithet about me? I don't have to stand for this!" Can you hear yourself saying that? But on the other hand, neither does this woman insult God by being too discouraged to take up his offer. See, there are two ways to fail to let Jesus be your Saviour. One is by being too proud, having a superiority complex - not to accept his challenge. But the other is through an inferiority complex - being so self-absorbed that you say, "I'm just so awful that God couldn't love me." That is, not to accept his offer. John Newton, a minister, once wrote a letter to a man who was very depressed. Take a note of what he said:

You say you feel overwhelmed with guilt and a sense of unworthiness? Well indeed you cannot be too aware of the evils inside of yourself, but you may be, indeed you are, improperly controlled and affected by them. You say it is hard to understand how a holy God could accept such an awful person as yourself. You then express not only a low opinion of yourself, which is right, but also too low an opinion of the person, work and promises of the Redeemer, which is wrong. You complain about sin, but when I look at your complaints, they are so full of self-righteousness, unbelief, pride, and impatience that they are little better than the worst evils you complain of."

Tim Keller,King's Cross Chapter 8.