Not Perfect But Redeemed By Grace
No, Not Perfect, But Redeemed
Don’t you love how, in the Bible, the great men and women of faith whom God used for His glory were not perfect people?
Moses was a murderer
David was an adulterer
Rahab was a harlot
Jonah was angry and a flight risk
Thomas was full of doubt
See? There’s hope for you and me. (Just kidding)
The idea that Christians have always led “perfect lives” is a misconception.
We are all sinful, and responsible for owning up to our failings.
Salvation is a free gift, but not a free pass to boldly continue to purposely sin.
Perfect? Hardly.
There is only one who is perfect, and He is Jesus.
Jesus alone.
The Apostle Paul – Not Perfect But Redeemed
Take the apostle Paul (formerly Saul) as another example.
His beautiful letters to the churches reflect God’s grace over his changed life.
But, until his dramatic conversion, he was a legalistic pharisee who was actually in favor of the persecution of Christians. There’s an accounting in the Book of Acts that Saul was in the crowd for the stoning of Stephen.
Even more disturbing, he guarded the cloaks of those doing the actual stoning.
What, then, caused Paul to become a man of faith and a follower of Jesus rather than a hater?
More like who.
Jesus.
God’s Great Love
Like the apostle Paul, we all have sinful practices to be ashamed of, but we can take that shame and lay it at the foot of the Cross.
Here is an excerpt Paul wrote while in prison for preaching the gospel.
4But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5even when we were dead in our wrongdoings, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,7so that in the ages to come He might show the boundless riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. – Ephesians 2: 4-7, (NASB).1
We may feel like a failure at times, but God can use us.
Pastor Alan Redpath (1907-1989), has this thought-provoking encouragement that rings true to this day:
The Bible NEVER flatters its heroes. It tells us the truth about each one of them in order that against the background of human breakdown and failure we may magnify the grace of God and recognize that it is the delight of the Spirit of God to work upon the platform of human impossibilities. – Alan Redpath, pastor, author, and theologian.2
To God be the Glory!
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1Scripture quotation is from the New American Standard Bible (NASB) Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation.
2Quotation courtesy of Alan Redpath, former pastor of Moody Church in Chicago, as quoted from https://quotefancy.com/alan-redpath-quotes
