Still True

Somehow, after we have been Christians for some time, we start to forget that the gospel is still true. We would never say it, or claim that it wasn’t true, but we fall into a rut of believing that, since we are supposed to be mature in our faith now, grace has somehow run out. We think that after the newness wears off, we must be better, do better, think better, and perform better. We must no longer be the flawed human that came to Jesus originally for His grace, comfort, and love. If we have not yet been transformed, we must be doing something wrong. We believe, in essence, that being a Christian is supposed to make you perfect in this life. This is where we are wrong.

The Church is just as much a bunch of messy, sinful, wicked people as the rest of the world. We are humans and humans are flawed. Being a Christian does not change our sinful nature. No matter how long we live as Christians, we will always be sinful wicked people. We cannot change this. Jesus can, and does, but nowhere does God promise that we will be perfected in this life. Even Paul stated that he had not yet gotten it all together. He didn’t claim to be perfect at all. In fact, he claims just the opposite:

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” [Philippians 3:12]

“So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.” [Romans 7:21-23]

Somewhere along the road we fall into the pit of thinking that we are supposed to be perfect now that we are Christians. But here’s the thing, the gospel is just as true for us now as it was when we first came to Jesus, or rather, when He first came to us. He came to save those who need a savior, and the more we realize that we still need a savior every single day of our lives, the more we will see that this truly is good news. His grace is not a one-time gift, His mercies are new every single day—and I am learning that this is a beautiful truth in which we can have hope and rest. Like manna from heaven, we receive grace again every day, and we need it every day.

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” [Lamentations 3:22-23]

As Christians, we are called to live differently, but nowhere does it say that when we fail, we are somehow disqualified from His grace again. Our hearts are being transformed, and that inevitably changes our actions, but when we “become Christians” we are not instantly made perfect. We are made new. We find new life and new hope and new peace and rest and joy and love in Christ. We finally are able to see that we are hopeless without Him, which makes His love so incredible, so beautiful, and so relieving. We are finally able to rest knowing that the God of the universe loves us in the midst of our brokenness. But we are still broken, that has not changed. We still need Him.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” [2 Corinthians 5:17]

Being a Christian is about realizing your absolute sinfulness that can’t be cured by human hands. It’s about grasping the reality of our need to be saved. If we were perfect, we wouldn’t need Jesus. Being a Christian means that we are His. It means that we see that we are hopeless without Him and desperately in need of His redeeming love. This kind of love changes us. It transforms us. Eventually the transformation will be complete, we will be perfected, but we have no reason to believe that occurs in this life, in this fallen state. We still live as fallen humans—redeemed, but still imperfect.

“being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” [Philippians 1:6]

Do you see the difference? Do you see that it is never about how good you are for Him, but instead about how good He is? This doesn’t change as we mature as Christians. The gospel is still true for us today. We are wicked sinful people being continually saved by a loving God who loves us too much to let us go. And we need Him every single day as we live in the reality of our imperfection.

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” [Romans 5:8]