Many people, especially the non-religious, are appalled when they see an avowed Christian doing wrong or catch them in a scandal. The first word that comes to mind is: Hypocrite!
The bar is raised. Believers are expected to live by a higher standard, and rightly so—to a degree.
Becoming a Christian, believing in Christ, declaring one’s self a committed follower of Jesus, does not make one suddenly become good. What it does do is it puts one on a lifetime journey toward change, correction, and transformation for the better. There are setbacks. There is stumbling. There are failures and relapses into old destructive (sinful) habits and attitudes. It is not a straight unbroken diagonal line leading upward. Hence the declaration, “by GRACE have I been saved!”
The premise of Christianity is that we are all, each and every one of us, broken and needy, imperfect and sinful people. In short, we are morally and ethically handicapped. The Apostle Paul put it this way: “And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.” (See Romans 7:18-20.) Sound familiar? It should.
It is the reason why we need a Savior. Cancer will not heal itself. It needs to be cut out or zapped with radiation and medication to attack and destroy it. It needs a great healing power to cure it. And it takes time. So it is with respect to the healing of our souls. We cannot heal ourselves. We cannot make ourselves become good by our own power. We need the grace of Christ’s spiritual healing power to enable us and cure us.
It may be a bumper sticker cliché, but it is deeply true: Christians are not perfect, just forgiven. Christians begin with a basic admission: “All is NOT well with my soul! I have faults and failures, moral weaknesses and flaws that I cannot correct with my own power or by my own strength of will or mind. I need to be rescued.” In comes Jesus. “God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:17). To be saved is to be forgiven, that is, to escape final condemnation for one’s sinful failures.
The salvation experience is but a starting point, the beginning of a lifetime journey. The journey is one of growing in righteousness (sanctification), working out one’s salvation in one’s personal life—changing, correcting, transforming, renewing for the better. But it is a struggle, and not an easy one at that. “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling,” says the Apostle Paul (Philippians 2:12b). The easy way is broad and open, says Jesus, the narrow way is difficult and hard, which few apparently are really willing to take. (See Matthew 7:13-14.)
Thus, Christians are not necessarily good people. But we are people willing to admit that we have a problem, that we are in fact our own worst enemies, and that we need a Savior to help us escape our own self-destructive (sinful) ways. We do wrong. We Christians are NOT perfect, and we are more than just merely forgiven. We Christians are intentionally growing in our awareness of sin in our lives and in our willingness to correct and change the error of our ways. The next time you see a Christian fall into moral failure, remember, it is by the grace of God that any of us can truly become better people in the first place.
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