Pastor
John Ortberg writes that there are two truths about human beings that matter
deeply.
“We are all of us rag dolls. Flawed and wounded, broken and bent. Ever since the Fall, every member of the human race has lived on the ragged edge. Partly our raggedness is something that happens to us. Our genes may set us up for certain weaknesses. Our parents may let us down when we need them most. But that’s not the whole story. We each make our own deposits into the ragged account of the human race. We choose to deceive when the truth begs to be spoken. We grumble when a little generous praise is called for. We deliberately betray when we’re bound by oaths of loyalty. Like a splash of ink in a glass of water, this raggedness permeates our whole being. Our words and thoughts are never entirely free of it. We are tempted and we succumb to temptation. We are rag dolls, all right.
“We are all of us rag dolls. Flawed and wounded, broken and bent. Ever since the Fall, every member of the human race has lived on the ragged edge. Partly our raggedness is something that happens to us. Our genes may set us up for certain weaknesses. Our parents may let us down when we need them most. But that’s not the whole story. We each make our own deposits into the ragged account of the human race. We choose to deceive when the truth begs to be spoken. We grumble when a little generous praise is called for. We deliberately betray when we’re bound by oaths of loyalty. Like a splash of ink in a glass of water, this raggedness permeates our whole being. Our words and thoughts are never entirely free of it. We are tempted and we succumb to temptation. We are rag dolls, all right.
But
we are God’s rag dolls. He
knows all about our raggedness, and he loves us anyhow. Our raggedness is no
longer the most important thing about us. We were not created ragged.
From
the beginning there was a wonder about human beings that caused God himself to
say “Very Good” as he looked at them in the department store window.
There was
a wonder about human beings that caused the writer of Genesis to say they had
been made in God’s own image. There was a wonder about human beings that
caused the psalmist to say they rival the divine beings in glory and honor.
There is a wonder about human beings still that even all our fallenness cannot
utterly erase.
Lord,
amazingly, even when we yield to temptation your love for us remains and your
passionate desire for us grows us into likeness of your Son will not relent. Therefore,
Lord, don’t let us yield to the temptation to fall into something less than
you have created us to be.
There is a wonder about you. Raggedness is not your identity. Raggedness is not your destiny, nor is it mine.
There is a wonder about you. Raggedness is not your identity. Raggedness is not your destiny, nor is it mine.
We
may be unlovely, yet we are not unloved. And we cannot be loved without being
changed. There is such a love, a love that creates value in what is
loved. There is a love that turns rag dolls into priceless treasures.
There is a
love that fastens itself onto ragged little creatures, for reasons that no one
could ever quite figure out, and makes them precious and valued beyond
calculation. This is a love beyond reason.
This is the love of God. This is the love with which God loves you and me.
This is the love of God. This is the love with which God loves you and me.
Love
is why God created us in the first place. Theologians speak of the fact that God
created everything freely, not out of necessity. This is a very important
idea—it means that God did not make us because he was bored, lonely, or had
run out of things to do. God did not create us out of need. He created us out of
his love. C. S. Lewis wrote, “God, who needs nothing, loves into existence
wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them.” But
the full extent of God’s love was shown not so much when he chose to create
us. It was shown when we had become sinful and unlovely.
For
God is fully aware of our secret. He knows that we are rag dolls. The prophet
Isaiah said it thousands of years ago: “All of us have become like one who is
unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” (Isaiah
64:6, NIV) Every one of us has become ragged, so damaged by sin and guilt
that it seemed like the logical thing left was to discard the human race. Toss
it out and start over. But this God could not bring himself to do. So God
proposed reconstructive surgery.
God
proposed to take the human race to where he could change filthy rags and remove
the guilt and sin that left the objects of his love so unlovely. There really is
such a place. It is called the cross.
Lord,
don’t let us yield to temptation, instead lead us to yield to your
reconstructive surgery for our lives
Question
to Consider
What most tempts you to do, think or say things that fall short of “image bearing” child of God, whom God is training you to become?
Prayer
“Lord, I suspect that my greatest temptation is the temptation to “settle”, to settle for the immediate gratification of food, a drug, a cheap tryst, a dishonoring compromise, anything that is easier than living into the kind of person you want to train me to become. All too often I choose easy and lazy over hard but good, painful but beautiful. Lord help me to choose the good and the beautiful. . . . . even if, especially if, it’s hard. Amen”
What most tempts you to do, think or say things that fall short of “image bearing” child of God, whom God is training you to become?
Prayer
“Lord, I suspect that my greatest temptation is the temptation to “settle”, to settle for the immediate gratification of food, a drug, a cheap tryst, a dishonoring compromise, anything that is easier than living into the kind of person you want to train me to become. All too often I choose easy and lazy over hard but good, painful but beautiful. Lord help me to choose the good and the beautiful. . . . . even if, especially if, it’s hard. Amen”
©
2015 by Zondervan. Used with permission. All rights reserved. Visit
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more about John Ortberg's work and ministry
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