All fall short . . .

 

When it comes to being a sinner, the term applies to everyone. That means a deeply evil person who exploits others, kills, steals, etc. and a person who steps over the line and lies one time or who gossips once or who is full of pride at his own goodness are both sinners. Sin is sin and I’m either walking in the Spirit or walking in the flesh. Sin does not have a scale making one sin worse than another except in the way it affects me and everyone else.

God makes a point in the story of the Israelites when they conquered Jericho. They first sent two spies who were in peril and wound up at the house of a prostitute.

(She) said to the men, “I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you devoted to destruction. And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the Lord your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath. (Joshua 2:9–11)

Her confession of faith and the protection offered to the two spies was a God-thing. He used her faith, as imperfect as it might have been, for his purposes. She risked her own life to hide the spies. MacArthur points out that because Rahab lied to protect them, we might question the validity of her faith thinking that genuine believers wouldn’t lie like that. However, Abraham did. Sarah did. Isaac did. Jacob did. But the important thing to understand is that God honors faith, not deception, and not ever any ‘good’ deeds we do apart from faith.

The NT says: “By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.” (Hebrews 11:31) In this, she illustrates the depth and breadth of God’s amazing grace, but also that no matter what we are or were, have done or not done, God’s saving grace is about faith in Him, not about our performance. This is not an excuse to sin but a reason to trust Him!

Not only was Rahab a prostitute, she was not an Israelite but a Canaanite. Her people were idolatrous, barbaric, debauched, infamous even among pagans for their immorality and cruelty. Yet amid that exceedingly wicked society, Rahab came to faith in the Lord God. Her faith wasn’t perfect, nor was her knowledge of God’s moral law, but because she trusted God, she was spared during Jericho’s conquest, and then was given an even greater honor — she became the mother of Boaz, who married Ruth, the great-great-grandmother of David, thereby becoming an ancestor of the Lord Jesus Christ. (see Matthew 1)

PRAY: Jesus, I know there are people who say their lives are so horrid that God cannot forgive them. Rahab’s story illustrates that His grace is for all, those who appear ‘good people’ and those we would consider great sinners. You do not measure us like that. Your word says:

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. (Romans 3:21–25)

To You all praise be given for Your great salvation which You offer to all, even to those we consider ‘vile sinners’ for Your Word says:

We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls upon your name, who rouses himself to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have made us melt in the hand of our iniquities. (Isaiah 64:6–7, italics mine)

PONDER: How do I feel when reading about this woman and about the truth that God isn’t impressed by any ‘good’ that I do apart from Him?

 

 

Our only hope . . .

 

READ Jeremiah 13–17

Just as Jeremiah was told to hide a garment in the cleft of a rock until it was spoiled and good for nothing, the Spirit of God hides me in Christ, my Rock, that I fully realize my pride and efforts are good for nothing. Instead, I must cling to Him that I might be a praise and glory for Him. Just as God filled His people with wine so they clashed with one another, God allows me to see my fumbling and uselessness without Him. (13:1–14)

Hear and give ear; be not proud, for the Lord has spoken. Give glory to the Lord your God before he brings darkness, before your feet stumble on the twilight mountains, and while you look for light he turns it into gloom and makes it deep darkness. But if you will not listen, my soul will weep in secret for your pride; my eyes will weep bitterly and run down with tears, because the Lord’s flock has been taken captive. (Jeremiah 13:15–17)

And if you say in your heart, ‘Why have these things come upon me?’ it is for the greatness of your iniquity that your skirts are lifted up and you suffer violence. Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil. (Jeremiah 13:22–23)

This is why we need a Savior. It isn’t that all of us are murderers and thieves. It isn’t that all of us are ruining lives with gross sin — for sin is not defined so much by degrees, even though some sins seem more deadly than others. Sin is as the Bible defines it: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way” and for that, God sent Jesus and “laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6) As the NT declares:

The righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith . . . . (Romans 3:21–25)

We cannot change our spots. This is why Jeremiah cried, “Though our iniquities testify against us, act, O Lord, for your name’s sake; for our backslidings are many; we have sinned against you. O you hope of Israel, its savior in time of trouble, why should you be like a stranger in the land, like a traveler who turns aside to tarry for a night? Why should you be like a man confused, like a mighty warrior who cannot save? Yet you, O Lord, are in the midst of us, and we are called by your name; do not leave us.” (Jeremiah 14:7–9)

This passage says God will remember their iniquity and punish their sins; He would send destroyers and have no pity on them because they rejected Him. He was “weary of relenting” so He turned them over to their enemies, took His peace from them. Sickness and death ruled. When they asked what they had done to deserve this, God said:

Because your fathers have forsaken me . . . and have gone after other gods and have served and worshiped them . . . and have not kept my law, and because you have done worse than your fathers, for behold, every one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me. Therefore I will hurl you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor. (11–13)

God saw their ways. Nothing is hidden from Him. He doubly repaid their iniquity and sin of idolatry and yet He also promised He would deliver them “out of the hand of the wicked, and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless.” (15:21) Such is the grace of God. We can agree:

O Lord, my strength and my stronghold, my refuge in the day of trouble, to you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth and say: “Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, worthless things in which there is no profit. Can man make for himself gods? Such are not gods!” “Therefore, behold, I will make them know, this once I will make them know my power and my might, and they shall know that my name is the Lord.” (19–21)

Even though the human heart is “deceitful and desperately sick,” God says, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord.” (17:7) He made that possible by sending Jesus who died for all sin. And we can cry with the prophet: “Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved, for you are my praise.” (17:14)

Thank You, Jesus. Praise to Your Name! Amen.