Romans 5:20-21 (NIV)
20The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, 21so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

1 Peter 2:16
Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God.

The law was supposed to bring us to a place of complete hopelessness where we think there is no way out, that we are complete and utter rubbish and then all of a sudden the light of His glory shines where there is grace and mercy. However grace and mercy can't work unless you're first found guilty and it is the trial that finds us guilty and that hurts.

Some of us never come to that point where we have judged ourselves and found ourselves guilty and we still see Jesus on that cross rather than seeing ourselves on it. The penny doesn't drop as to why He went to the cross, why He was broken, why He was wounded for our transgressions and for our iniquity not His and therefore we never come to the altar of repentance and exchange the negative and take the good, bringing our sinful nature and giving it to Him. Before we can give it to Him we must identify that we have it. Once we realise that we have it then we can make the exchange.

So many of us feel that, "Oh I can't tell them that they're bad, that's not right. I've just got to cover up the bad with the positive." It's a little bit like having rust in the car and covering it up, "Oh lets just put some filler on it and pretend it isn't there" then the rust comes through rather than to scourge, isn't that what He said, that He scourges, He cuts and He scrapes out the very root. Sometimes when gangrene sets in they have to scrape and get it all out before they start to work on the healing process.
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