Jesus saves sinners, not the righteous. Sometimes as Christians we don’t really believe that. We tend to be more like the Pharisee who attempted to impress God with his upstanding character and good works rather than the tax collector who could only hope in God’s mercy (see Luke 18:9-14).

Jollyblogger’s recent post “Giving Your Worst to Jesus” hits on this topic and David writes about experimenting with being honest with God about his own lack of godliness. I’ll let him tell you what he’s found.

Lately I have had the opportunity to do a little reflection and self-evaluation… during this time I have taken time to open up what is really in my heart to God, the good the bad and the ugly, but mostly the bad and the ugly.  There is something strangely freeing about that, to acknowledge the worst that is in me before God and to not get zapped is a great experience.  Most of the time, the me I try to present to God in prayer is me at my best, the spiritual guy, the guy who has it under control.  Which would explain the difficulties I have in prayer and other practices of devotion.  The me I try to present to Jesus is often an idealized version of what I hope to become, not the real me…It seems to me that if Jesus came to heal the sick, not the well, that He is far more attentive to those who can only give Him their worst, not their best.  And it also seems that if we come to Him honestly, with our worst, we might find Him to be closer than if we always tried to bring Him our best.

Amen and amen!!

[tags]spirituality, Christianity, Jesus Christ[/tags]

This entry was posted on Monday, February 26th, 2007 at 8:13 pm and is filed under Theology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.