Searching for the Perfect Christian.
This is not so much a report about Spain, but the topic was inspired by my visit here. My friend has been telling me a little bit each day about some difficulties she’s had with their mission organization. Not complaining, by any stretch of the imagination, but just talking a little bit about the challenges.
I have to admit, I’ve been disappointed <although not with her, to be clear!>. It’s the same feeling I had last year when I was visiting another dear friend who’s a missionary in a closed country -- although I was so happy and felt honored that she would trust me enough to share the difficulties she’d been having with her mission and team members, I listened with a heavy heart. Come to think of it, I experienced similar disappointment while attending <snip> Bible College years ago and realizing <rather quickly> that the professors and others in leadership could be quite wrong at times, and belligerently so, wielding their Biblical authority like a club.
I have to admit, I’ve been disappointed <although not with her, to be clear!>. It’s the same feeling I had last year when I was visiting another dear friend who’s a missionary in a closed country -- although I was so happy and felt honored that she would trust me enough to share the difficulties she’d been having with her mission and team members, I listened with a heavy heart. Come to think of it, I experienced similar disappointment while attending <snip> Bible College years ago and realizing <rather quickly> that the professors and others in leadership could be quite wrong at times, and belligerently so, wielding their Biblical authority like a club.
You might know what I’m talking about. That sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach every time you read the gleefully reported fall of an influential evangelical minister, or the stab to the heart when it’s a minister or leader you’ve known and loved for years.
A very wise friend of mine never seems to be disappointed, nor surprised, by these occurrences. She likes to say we humans are scum apart from Christ, so why should I expect anything different than scum-like behavior?
Somehow I’m unable to adopt that viewpoint, but other than the word “scum,” isn’t that pretty much what Romans has to say?
“There is no one righteous, not even one...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:10, 23Perhaps the root of my problem is the humanism that so infects our society it’s rarely questioned -- the idea that man is naturally good. I can’t even count how many verses refute that supposition, so why am I always so surprised when men don’t act good?
Perhaps it’s as simple as my sin nature, yelling in protest every time someone else illustrates, in painful full-color clarity, that I’m never going to achieve perfection. If they can’t do it, gosh, what chance do I have? It reminds me of the last couple weeks of sermons at our church, discussing the book of Romans. I think maybe I’m a little like an Israelite, trying to be justified by the law and highly ticked whenever I’m forcibly reminded of the utter impossibility of working my way to salvation.
Thank You Lord, for the seven zillionth time, for Your grace that covers all my sin.
