sinners – Moment to Moment (Bible blog)

All the tax collectors and sinners were approaching to listen to him. (Luke 15:1)

For some reason, those words hit me this morning. And it made me wonder: “How approachable am I to those who don’t know Jesus?”

I’ll be honest. I’m not a people person. I like people, but no one would ever call me an extrovert. And for me, meeting new people is never easy. I’ve gotten better at it, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be natural at it.

But can people see the love of Jesus in me? Can they sense I care about them? Can they approach me knowing that I’m not looking down on them or condemning them?

I hope so. But then again, I can look at myself and see times I wasn’t so approachable.

Jesus was approachable. That’s why “sinners” were attracted to him. No one, on the other hand, ever accused the Pharisees of being approachable.

We are called to spread God’s Kingdom, to invite people to come under his good reign. But that will never happen if we are not approachable as Jesus was.

So the thing I’m praying today is, “Lord show me how to be more approachable, like you were.”

How about you? Are you approachable?

Saints, but sinners

When I was in university, I took a world religions class. When we came to Judaism, one of the things taught was the story of Noah.

And towards the end of the story, my professor noted that in another flood story from another culture, after the flood, the hero went to some island and lived in paradise (or something like that).

“But in the Bible,” he said, “it’s quite different. After the flood, Noah got drunk, and then he died.”

Everyone in the class roared.

Following a question from a student, he then amended the story saying, “Well, he didn’t die right after he got drunk, but…”

Needless to say, my professor wasn’t a Christian, but he did bring up a very important point.

When you look at most of the characters in the Bible that are dealt with at length, no matter how godly they are, you also see them in their doubts, in their weaknesses, and yes, in their sin.

Noah was no exception.

Here was a man that God called blameless in his sight, someone who stood out from the crowd. And yet in this story, he’s lying on the floor drunk and naked.

I take some comfort in that. If I never saw flaws in the godly men the Bible talks about, it could get pretty discouraging, considering how often I have doubts, how many weaknesses I have, and how often I fall into sin.

Yet while God doesn’t hide these things about these men, you don’t generally see God dwell on these things.

Whenever God refers to Noah from that point on, he never brings up that failure again. Instead, he only points out his righteousness.

And that’s how God sees us. It says in Psalm 103,

The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.

He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. (Psalm 103:8–12)

In another place, God says,

I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more. (Hebrews 8:12)

I titled this post “Saints, but sinners,” but that’s from a purely human point of view.

In God’s eyes, he doesn’t see us as “saints, but sinners,” but only as “saints.”

And when he writes about you in his book, he may make mention of the times you failed or sinned, but that will only be part of the larger story. A story where Jesus redeemed you and washed away all of your sin.

And a story about how because of the blood Jesus shed on the cross, you have become his beloved saint, holy and blameless in his sight, to the praise of his glorious grace. (Ephesians 1:4–14)