God Uses Imperfect People

God can and often does use imperfect people to accomplish his purposes.

Look at the lineage of Jesus in Matthew 1:3. “Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar.” Read Genesis 38 about how Judah fathered Perez with his daughter-in-law Tamar. She dressed up as a prostitute to get pregnant when Judah had money to spend after selling the wool from his sheep. David committed adultery with Bathsheba. (II Samuel chapter 11) David had her husband Euriah put in the front lines of battle to make sure he got killed to cover his sin. Yet God chose to have Jesus come from the “house of David.” Note that in Matthew 1:6 “David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife.” While the child David fathered while Uriah was alive died, the sinners David and Bathsheba are still in the lineage of Christ through their son Solomon!

There are other well-known examples.

Before becoming a great Christian evangelist spreading the word of Christ, the apostle Paul was called Saul and he traveled around trying to destroy Christianity (Acts 8).

Abrahm lied telling one king that his beautiful wife Sarai was his sister, because he didn’t trust God to protect him. He was afraid they would kill him to take Sarai for themselves. (Genesis 12:10-20) Later Abrahm was Abraham and he told yet another king the same lie about his wife Sarah, again not trusting God to protect him. (Genesis 20) He told the same lie twice and both time failed to trust in God’s protection!

Peter was able to walk on water until he took his eyes off Jesus and looked at the wind and waves instead. (Matthew 14:25-31) Peter also denied Christ three times.

Moses killed a man and you know how God used him. I hope you will let God use you too!

Another “imperfect person” thought. My church had a pastor who spent time as a missionary on Guam and had served successfully at several churches. Along the way, he helped many come to know Jesus. Also along the way, he also started getting emotional attachments to women in his congregation. At a minimum, he committed some kind of emotional adultery. He wound up getting asked to resign from my church in disgrace. I traded emails shortly later with a missionary our church was sponsoring. (This man was planning to enter a Muslim country where it was illegal to preach Christianity.) I mentioned this rather ugly preacher situation to him and he responded with an insightful statement. “Whatever God accomplished through Brother XXX is still valid. Those people are still saved!” We have no power on our own. God works through us. Even if we later screw up, it was still God working… and can work through us again.

You comments are welcome and encouraged!