I am not perfect. Far from it actually. I constantly deal with pride and fear. I constantly deal with being the husband that my wife needs me to be for the sake of Christ. I constantly deal with passivity as a father. I constantly deal with self-dependence and not relying on God. I constantly deal with complacency and laziness. Should I go on?
I have studied a lot lately about the Israelites going into the Promised Land in Canaan in the books of Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua. The reason the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years and the reason Moses and that whole generation didn’t enter into the Promised Land wasn’t because they were constantly dealing with some sort of sin in their lives. It was because of their unbelief in the power and sovereignty of God. Hebrews 3:7-19 says:
7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, 9 where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. 10 Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ 11 As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’”
12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. 15 As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice,do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” 16 For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? 17 And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? 19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
I don’t want to wander around and end up with my body falling in the barren wilderness when my true home lies in God’s rest, the Promised Land. The Israelites didn’t need to be perfect to enter into Promised Land. They just needed to believe. I don’t have to be perfect to enter into the Promised Land, I just have to believe. Matt Chandler, pastor at Village Church in Texas, said this, “If you’re waiting until you’re perfect to live life on mission, you’re going to die without much mission.”
God wants to use ordinary, uneducated, common sinners to go on-mission to redeem the world. Acts 4:13 says, When they [the Jewish Sadducees] saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. If you believe in Jesus Christ as your savior and redeemer who died on the cross for your sins, then Jesus is with you just like he was with Peter and John. Take hold of God’s grace and believe. Believe, and enter into God’s Promises and live a life worthy of this response: “Well done, good and faithful servant.” (Matthew 25:21)
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