“Barnabas and Paul [said]...We also are men of like passions with you”
(Acts 14:14,15)
“Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are”
(Ja.5:17)
“For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.”
(Eccl. 20)
One of my readers once wrote, “Sometimes I am overwhelmed with the Bible. I just don't seem to be able to come up to its teachings.” If you have ever felt this way, there’s no need to be overly concerned. All of us “wart-infested” saints have this sense of falling short from time to time, that is, with the exception of those associated with the pseudo perfectionist movement or some of the self-deceived “Deeper-Lifers.”
We see the above truth embodied in both the Old and New Testament saints. They, both men and women, show us the unvarnished lives in these human personages. As I’ve quoted my son Andrew so often, “You can’t run from your humanity.” The Bible is careful to paint its characters as they actually were, without re-touching their photographs. In other words, they lived on our street, and we can all easily identify with them.
In the Man Christ Jesus we find inspiration from one who never failed; in the saints, we find encouragement from those who failed, but by His grace and help are able to rise up again, to face life's difficulties. We need the perfect Man, Christ Jesus, on the one side of us, and and the weak, faltering saints on the other. Jesus is the ideal Man, and the fallible saints show what we can become, with His enabling power.
“I ain’t what I outta be, I ain’t what I wanta be, I ain’t what I’m gonna be, but thank God, but by His grace I’m more than I was.”
(Heard first from Harold Coldiron, my preacher brother-in-law. Sixty years ago).
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