with regard to...

With regard to “I believe we are awkward and bumbling and uninformed”, not to mention sinful, prideful, selfish, and inconsistant; I have this to say. Too often we look at things we do not understand, and are not familiar with, with skeptisism and suspision. We look also at the person who presents these things, with skeptisism and suspision, and without fail, find these people to be less than perfect, often far from perfect. We then determine in our minds that, since the messenger is faulty…so too, is the message. We feel justified in our skeptisism and suspision, we gloat in our ability to correctly discern.

But have we correctly discerned?? Have we truly “tested everything, thrown out the bad, and held on to the good?” Have we brought the message before the Spirit of Truth and asked him what he thinks? Or have we thrown out the good with the bad. Is it true that a less than perfect messenger is unable to deliver a good, sound and true message?? I truly hope not. I hope I don’t have to be perfect before I can share the truth about Jesus. If I say 90 things that are true and 10 things that are not true, does that make the 90 things any less true?? What if it’s more like 50-50? What if I’m sailing along, doing pretty good, and then trip over something unforeseen? Does that invalidate everything I’ve done up to this point? Where’s the grace in that?

I think Paul knew what he was talking about when he said “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us”. If you hold my life up to the light…guaranteed you’ll find a cracked pot, but inside…there’s a treasure. Throw me out (or anyone else for that matter) if you want….but don’t throw the treasure out along with me.