Monday, April 8, 2019

Saints or Sinners



Job 40:3-4 “Then Job answered the LORD, and said, Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.”

I came across an enlightening devotion which confirmed what Pastor Nolte had explain a week ago, that those who we believe to be the greatest of Christians fall below the line and must be “born again”. It is remarkable how the saintliest of men often confess to being sinners. The patriarch Job was said by God Himself  there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?” Yet, when Job saw God, he could only say, “Behold, I am vile.

And consider Abraham, who is called “the father of all them that believe” in Romans 4:11. When he presumed to talk to God, however, Abraham said that he was “but dust and ashes”. King David, “the sweet psalmist of Israel” according to 2 Samuel 23:1, and “a man after God’s own heart” in 1 Samuel 13:14, said: “
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.” in Psalm 51:5. Isaiah, the greatest of the prophets, testified when he came into God’s presence: “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips” in Isaiah 6:5. The angel recognized Daniel the prophet as “a man greatly beloved” by God in Daniel 10:11. Yet, when Daniel saw God, he fell on his face and said: “My comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained no strength” in Daniel 10:8.

In the New Testament, the apostle Peter said: “I am a sinful man, O Lord” in Luke 5:8, and Paul called himself the chief of sinners in 1 Timothy 1:15. God dwells “in the light which no man can approach unto” (1 Timothy 6:16). The finite meets the infinite. Imperfection meets complete perfection. The impure meets ultimate purity. It’s off the chart! Thank God for His love and mercy.

The devotional concluded that the closer one comes to the Lord, the more clearly one sees his own sinfulness and the more wonderful becomes God’s amazing grace. No one who is satisfied with his or her own state of holiness has yet come to know the Lord in His state of holiness! We are all sinners saved by grace and that’s the gospel truth. Saints are just those who have been sanctified through salvation. None dare face their almighty Creator God except by His grace through the mediator Jesus Christ; our Savior and Lord. What can you feel but admiration and gratitude towards the Maker of Heaven and Earth?

Count your blessings every day.

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