“The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” – 1 Timothy 1:15
Do you embrace this statement as truth? Every word of it? Do you embrace it as truth about you personally or do you think of it as simply a flowery saying of Paul?
Do you truly believe the mission and purpose of Christ entering our world was to save sinners? Do you personally believe you are the foremost of sinners? You should!
As followers of Jesus, we need to embrace every part of it for ourselves. Much of the weakness and ineffectiveness of the church in North America stems from the failure of each individual Christian to make this truth their own.
When we embrace this truth, we don’t need to be angry, confused, cynical, or frustrated about the actions and statements of those who don’t yet know Jesus. Of course sinners are going to sin – that’s why Jesus came! We can lovingly embrace them as part of the purpose of Christ and our personal mission field.
We should be seeking to make friends with sinners not avoid them. We should listen to them and speak to them of Christ. And we should do so humbly and gently because of our deep awareness of just how awful our own sin and rebellion against God were.
When we embrace this truth, we fall deeply and madly in love with Jesus Who saved us though we surely didn’t deserve it. We become excited to tell people of the incredibly good thing that happened to us: that God loved us and sent His Son to die for us, rather than damning us as we deserved.
When we’re living this truth, we have no room left to hate or condemn sinners we meet. We’re left with the burning desire of one miraculously recovering patient to offer the cure to another dying patient.