The Right Comparisons
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It’s quite an intimidating list. if you think about it.
- Abraham the man of faith
- Moses the lawgiver
- David, a man after God’s own heart
- Elijah the prophet
- Peter the rock
- Paul the evangelist
Heroes of our faith. God’s anointed. Role models we can never live up to. Or so we think. It is profoundly encouraging that the great examples of faith and godliness in the Bible are not really the superhuman spiritual giants we’ve traditionally made them out to be. If they were, few of us would be eligible for God’s service. We just can’t relate to their spiritual stature.
Lets take another look at that list.
- Abraham the liar (Gen 12:13) and the impatient one (Gen 16:2)
- Moses the murderer (Ex 2:12)
- David the adulterer (2 Sam 11:2-5)
- Elijah, prone to despair and suicide (1 Kings 19:3-4)
- Peter the denier (Matthew 26:69-75)
- Paul the persecutor (Acts 8:3)
And the list goes on: Jonah the disobedient complainer, Matthew the tax collector, Rahab the prostitute, Jacob the deceiver, and many, many more. What churches or ministries today would accept them for service? God did. Not only did He use them in His service, He showcases them in His Word. They are trophies of His grace.
I was really glad to read this since I recently had a conversation with a friend who was struggling with his belief and beating himself up more and more after comparing himself with well known people in the faith today. Even though I tried to comfort him by assuring him that they too struggled and he just never saw it because he wasn’t close to them, I didn’t feel as though what I was saying was comforting for either of us. Neither of us really wanted to believe that God would accept us as broken and tarnished as we are. I thought the devotional above did an awesome job pointing out just how big God’s grace is and how much he wants and loves us even in our brokenness.
I couldn’t agree more with this. One of the biggest elements of wonder for me with Jesus’ life is the fact that he kept Peter around. Not only did he keep him around, but he considered him one of the 3 inner circle guys. And when you take a step back, Peter was consistently a train wreck. I mean he did somethings really well, but overall, he was brash and lumbering. AND GOD CHOOSE HIM TO BUILD THE CHURCH ON. This fact gives me great hope for my humble, lumbering attempts to serve Christ. Maybe he can do stuff with all of our offerings, however inadequate.
It is always encouraging to see that God used broken people for His glory. That He loved them unconditionally, called them to Himself, and showed them Grace. Amazing.
Praise God for the failures of these men and countless others through scripture so I can see more clearly how Jesus loves the imperfect and that He came to die for sinners…which absolutely includes me.
If we’re honest with ourselves we see that in those moments of despairing of our efforts and our ability we are in a much better place. The funny thing is that when we’re in a “good place” by our terms we actually think that we in some way are more worthy of the love and grace He gives.
There is nothing for us to bring him except our need and except our brokenness-when we think we’ve brought something else worthy to Him we’ve stopped looking at Jesus (and like Peter on the water we immediately begin to sink-when our focus becomes anything other than Jesus-even our growth, our prayers, ANYTHING-we make it an idol). Thankfully we’ve got lots of need and lots of brokenness to bring and in His kindness He brings us there again and again that we might come to Him and REST. Yes, please-I need me some rest.