When my team and I were evangelizing through the streets of Kicukiro, our home district here in Rwanda, we weren’t sure how and when God was going to show up. We had been going door-to-door for a few hours, praying for families that were already born again, but we were thirsting for more. Then we met Reese…
Reese was a drunk, whose Pastor had told him that slipping up or falling from faith leaves you too far gone for Christ. He had been taught that sin was unforgivable, and that there was absolutely no going back. We all held our laughter as he pointed a finger in our direction saying we “are all perfect, and have never messed up.” When I pulled out my bible and shared 2 Corinthians 5:17 with our new friend, I didn’t expect the shock and relief that overcame him. And when Michelina told him where our church was, we didn’t expect him to join us the following Sunday.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” {2 Cor 5:17}
Fast Forward to Sunday: We’re sitting in church listening to Alex and Kate preach, praying that the message would be received by every heart in the room. Our Pastor, or Papa Fred as we like to call him, takes the stage and asks if anyone would like to pray to receive Christ. Only one hand goes up, and tears fill our eyes. Reese stands and repeats a prayer of salvation after Papa Fred. It was then that the message resonated clearly in my head: No perfect people allowed.
Jesus doesn’t call upon the perfect. He calls upon the broken, the needy, and the down. He doesn’t call us into perfection, but instead he calls us into perfect love. No one walks a blameless life, and no one ever will. The imperfect are called into His love, to make disciples, and live in His grace. Don’t believe me?
Jacob was a cheater. Peter had a temper. David had an affair. Noah was a drunk. Jonah ran from God. Paul was a murderer. Gideon was insecure. Miriam was a gossip. Rahab was a prostitute. Thomas was a doubter. Sara was impatient. Elijah was moody. Moses stuttered. Bacchus was short. Abraham was old. Lazarus was dead.
In Mark 2:16-17, Jesus is being questioned by teachers and Pharisees because he is sharing a meal with tax collectors and sinners and they’re unsure why he’d call upon the likes of these people to be his disciples. When Jesus hears their questioning, he responds “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul is crying out begging for the Lord to remove the thorn from his side. But Christ responds in an unexpected way, saying “My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor 12:9) It’s then that Paul realizes that he needs to delight in hardship, persecution, and weakness, because that is when the full power of Christ can rest upon us and we can be made strong.
I’m imperfect. I’ve lied, I’ve cheated, I’ve judged, I’ve cursed, and I’ve run from God. I’ve fallen from grace more times than I can count. Yet here I am, spending nine months pursuing the life that Christ intended for His disciples to have. I’ve been called into His perfect love, to show others all over the world His glory. We’re not perfect, and if we think we are, then we’re lying to ourselves. But that is where His glory shines! In our weakness and imperfections, His power rests on us.
Christ calls us to seek after Him and His heart, just as he seeks after ours. He doesn’t want perfection, because perfection is a facade. He wants us to embrace our imperfections and seek to be more like Him in them. He simply wants us to accept that we cannot be perfect, we cannot run from sin; that is why we were given Him. Because through Him we are forgiven, and we have the opportunity to step into perfect love, imperfectly.
So step into faith, and into His perfect love. But please, No Perfect People Allowed.
