A few years ago I had gone to this place where I volunteer as a pastoral counselor and they asked me to talk to the new kid who had come in. He was as inked, pierced and Goth as any kid I’d ever seen. They told me he claimed to be wiccan and a Satanist. He sat there trying to look as menacing as his frail, five foot frame would allow him to be. After I said hello, and heard his little boy’s voice, any threat of his being menacing evaporated. I knew in an instant what an hour’s conversation would confirm – he was a scared little guy from a broken home, who had been terribly bullied, probably abused, and was trying to find some source of power in order to feel safe. The worst thing I could be was shocked, and the second worst thing I could be was amused. I had to take him on his own terms. He told me he was wiccan and a Satanist. I replied that I had talked to enough wiccans to know that they hate being called Satanists, and that I doubted he could be both at the same time. He said that he had been wiccan and that now he was a Satanist. I asked if he belonged to any particular Satanic church, and he said no, he had been practicing on his own. I asked what he did to practice Satanism. He became really animated as he replied: “I try to connect with the dead in order to control their powers of darkness. I want to use that power to gain a cloak of invisibility, to control minds, and to time travel.” And so I asked, “Are you having any success with that?”

Maybe you think that was a sucker punch, but I wanted him to know that although I took him seriously, I seriously rejected his choice of faiths. Although we stayed friendly, and I still pray for him, I don’t think I helped him much. There is stuff I don’t know about, perhaps no one does, and until he is in a safe place he’ll be the kid he is now.

If he had been truly menacing he would have looked me square in the eye and say: “And your Christianity, being more like Jesus, are you having any success with that?”

What would I have said? “Not Much”? By one way of reckoning that would be an accurate answer. Being good seems to get harder as I get older, and those words of Paul, The good that I would do I don’t do, but the evil I don’t want to do is the very thing I do (Romans 7.19) seem increasingly spot on. The apostle Paul says this, not during those days of his blindness and repentance in Damascus, but years later, after missionary journeys had been taken, and epistles had been written. He would also write: It is a trustworthy statement that Christ came into the world to save sinners and I am the worst of all (I Timothy 1.15). Notice he says am the worst, not was the worst. He didn’t ever get beyond the daily struggle with sin.

Nor did he get beyond the reach of God’s grace. For this reason I found mercy, in order that in me, as the worst, Jesus Christ might demonstrate his perfect patience, as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life (I Timothy 1.16).

Nor do I. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8.1).

Where sin increases grace abounds all the more (Romans 5.20). The measure of Christian success is salvation. Salvation is by grace alone. Grace given to the repentant Christian is immediate and absolute (I John 2.1-3). And so any of us born-of-blood children, flawed but holding on tight to Jesus, can confidently answer: