One of the greatest misconceptions the world has about christianity and the church is the idea of perfection. The idea that God’s people have perfect lives and don’t make mistakes. That all good christian men and women have always had it all together and wouldn’t even think of making a mistake, let alone sinning on purpose. These thoughts could not be any farther from the truth. As a matter of fact scriptures say in Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”.
Throughout the history of mankind God has taken men and women with difficult pasts and done incredible things. Many of the greatest men and women in the Bible had things they were not proud of in their past. For example, King David, who was referred to as “A man after God’s own heart”, had an affair with a a married woman and had her husband killed to cover it up. Or Moses, in his youth, who killed an Egyptian in anger and ran away for decades before God called him to lead the Israelites out of slavery. There was also the prostitute Rahab, who helped the Israelite spies escape Jericho before God knocked down the walls. Both David and Rahab are actually in the bloodline Jesus was born into when God sent him to the earth as a sacrifice for the world. And who could forget the apostle Paul who before his conversion was rounding up christians to throw them into jail, beat them, and even stood and watched as Stephen was stoned to death for teaching about Jesus.
Everyone has a past and have made mistakes. There are times when it may feel as if God or the church would not want a person who had made so many mistakes or such a big mistake, but that is just not true. God so desperately believes in us despite our past that he gave his son Jesus life for us to have a future with Him. The church is full of men and women with difficult pasts who have decided to stop looking back at their mistakes and are looking forward to their future with God and each other. God’s people are not perfect and will continue to make mistakes but have found freedom from their past, peace and redemption thru the Blood of Christ (John 8:36).
So true!