Growing up "Christian"

There are a plethora of benefits and joys to growing up in a Christian environment and being saturated in the Word. I am also realizing a downside--or rather a consequence.There is so much that I take for granted, that I find I don't understand some of the basics. I can talk about them, probably debate them, back it up with Scripture--but I don't really understand. Case in point? The Cross. Reading tonight in J.I. Packer's Concise Theology, and he had this to say about God's goodness:

"The supreme expression of God's goodness is still, however, the amazing grace and inexpressible love that shows kindness by saving sinners who deserve only condemnation: saving them, moreover, at the tremendous cost of Christ's death on Calvary."

Hearkening back to the earlier post on the necessity of recalling--and repenting of--the fall, I really don't get the cross. I understand it to some extent, but it really fails to sink down in to my soul. I don't even begin to comprehend or appreciate the gravity of who I was, God's love, and Christ's sacrifice. I am living post-cross, and so don't understand life before a realized Savior; I am saturated with sin, and so don't understand perfect holiness; I am so completely selfish, that I can't understand selfless love--and so perpetually take these for granted.

Its impossible to understand or appreciate grace when we don't understand the fall. How can His love make sense, when I see my self as so lovable? I see sin, and I still don't get grace. Hmm...come to think of it, Dr. Held spoke in chapel on that very topic. Maybe I am not alone... I think I should listen to this.