Do you ever struggle with shame?

That something from your past, something you did, or something that was done to you,

has forever marked your life so badly that you wonder if God can really redeem it.

A stain so dark that you wonder if Jesus might even be ashamed of you.

My guest today has a life-giving message for all of us.

Nobody has a story that can make Jesus blush.

Eric Raymond is the senior pastor at Redeemer Fellowship Church in Watertown, Massachusetts,

and the author of He is Not Ashamed, The Staggering Love of Christ

for His People from Crossway. Let's get started.

Well, Eric, thank you so much for joining me again on the Crossway podcast.

It's great to be with you.

So you opened this new book of yours with a quote from

John Newton. I wonder if you could start us off by reading that quote and explaining why

you started your book with it. Sure. Newton writes, if I ever reach heaven, I expect to find

three wonders there. First, to meet some I had not thought to see there.

Second, to miss some I had expected to see there.

And third, the greatest wonder of all to find myself there.

I want to start the book off with that quote

just because of the nature of grace and that we really don't deserve in so many

ways to go to heaven it's a gift and the reality that we i don't know every single day i think through

and i'm grateful for just another day just keep me another day

get me to the finish line and I want to finish I want to get to home and to to get there and then

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