Grace full mama

I think that sometimes we have become a little bit mixed up about what a Christian is. We think we are “bad Christians,” or “good Christians” based on how shiny we appear to everyone around us. “Oh I have never been drunk, I saved sex for marriage, yada yada.” We get so focused on this that we become a rather inhospitable place to anyone new, seeking God in the middle of their mess. We aren’t much of a draw to the Mary Magdelene’s, the Samaritan women, the people Jesus loved and spent his time with.

More importantly, maybe in our focus on being nice shiny Christians, we have lost sight of the very crux of Christianity. We are all sinners. That means you. That means me. That means your pastor and the funny smelling lady who sits in the pew behind you. We are not supposed to justify our sin, or whitewash our souls. We are supposed to be seeking God for the kind of revolution that goes down deep and comes from raw vulnerability. So you didn’t sin like that person. Cool. Newsflash… God doesn’t care. Your righteousness is as filthy rags just like theirs. Your story is not about someone who did good and didn’t fall into this pit or that pit. Your story is about how he rescued you from your pit. Your story is about how he redeemed you. Your story is about Him.

We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. Isaiah 64:6

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that none may boast. Ephesians 2:8-9

We need to be careful that we are not standing atop a sparkling white pedestal waiting for people to come and ask us for a boost up there! We are not supposed to be on a pedestal at all. We are supposed to be in the trenches, pointing to Jesus as the answer to the pain within. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto death. Revelations 12:11 Friends, our testimony is the story of how God saved us. It is our story about how, as Cory Tenboom said, “There is no pit so deep, that he is not deeper still.” Our testimony is about how we were saved by the blood of the lamb. Our story is raw and messy and beautiful. It is much like childbirth. It is hard, a messy baptism of blood and water, and that is what makes it beautiful.

If we go about our Christian lives as though we are so whitewashed we never needed saving… if we shelter our kids so that they have no idea how to reach those who didn’t grow up in the church, we are missing the whole point. We can’t go to someone who is looking for a way out of their pain if we are pretending we never had any. God did not say to us “and God so loved the Christians that he gave his only begotten son;” he said he so loved the world. The world. That is everyone. Everyone and every story. If we are going to be like Him, we had better learn to love what he loves!

So let’s encourage raw vulnerability. Where is your struggle currently? What struggle have you been rescued out of? How does your life magnify the goodness of God? Tell me, and everyone else about how you are redeemed! Vulnerability is like the yeast in bread. Sprinkle a little bit in and it spreads through the whole batch, growing faithfully. If you are vulnerable, those who need to be reached will feel safe being vulnerable as well. None of us are good Christians; but He is a good God!