Paul's confidence

'You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody.'

Paul said these words. Paul is openly and with confidence saying these words. He is saying them without shame. But he is saying them to people who are full of sin and confusion and idiocy! He wrote this in his second letter to the church in Corinth. In the first letter he brought out some pretty bitter sins, sins that if ever came to light about us would drive us to the nearest airport with the intent of never coming back. But Paul says these folks are his letter, these people, sins and foolishness included, are his accomplishment that he is happy about. 

Why is Paul not ashamed to say, 'Hey, these people are a direct result of God's mercy through the ministry God called me to'? We see it a few sentences following: 'Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for our competence comes from God.' 

Somewhere along the line we came to think that when we become followers of Jesus we instantly become resistant to sin. When this impeccable resistance doesn't happen we want to wait until the sin goes away, THEN we can be help others. And then our  dilemma is that we think we need to be fixed of whatever it is we are 'not right' in--our pet, besetting, dark cloud, seemingly inescapable sin or problem--before we can glorify God in ANYthing or be of use to God and others. But this idea is insane and crazy and not found in the Bible anywhere. 

Paul is proud to bring these people on the world's stage with excitement because God saved them and God, in his wisdom, is loving them and using them for his purposes of good. Do I wish to be rid of sin? Absolutely and always; but day-to-day sinlessness on our part as a Christian is no more a qualification to follow God and glorify him and honor him and bring a bigger smile to his face than our works were to make him love us; we don't have to be perfect, Jesus is. (again, we shouldn't be cozy or comfortable with our sin, we are to kill it and hate it and be rid of it)

A lie I consistently believe is that I must be flawless and having every little thing in my life in order before I can help someone or lead someone… this is a lie. No one would ever be able or qualified to do anything, no missionary or pastor or counselor or elder or leader; if that were the case Paul would never have left Arabia or Damascus if that were the case. 

God continues to advance his kingdom by way of using imperfect and unlikely sinners, and it shocks the watching world. Remember that it is God who has the power, and he uses us; he does, not us. He uses, not us. He makes happen, not us. We are to only follow him in obedience directed by his love, his Spirit, his Word.