Walking Life with a Limp

1 Tim 1:15 "Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners — of whom I am the worst."  Never trust a man who walks without a limp. In other words, don't trust someone who believes in his own righteousness for he will be a man who judges others. It is easy to judge others, not so easy to have grace. Show me someone who shows love and grace and I'll show you someone whom much has been forgiven.

For those of you who don't get the reference to a man who walks with a limp here is the context from the Old Testament:

Gen 32:24-28 "So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.  When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.  Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak." But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."  The man asked him, "What is your name?" "Jacob ," he answered.  Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob , but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."

Jacob, my namesake, was an usurper, a con man, a man whose only virtue was his tenacity. But it was that tenacity that won him being named the father of the Jewish people. Only, Jacob knew that he should have died in that encounter. Later on in that same passage Jacob says this: "So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared."

Like Jacob, Paul knew what he was capable of.  In the name of orthodoxy he had presided over the murder of the early saints whose only crime was to confess Jesus as the Christ.  He too walked with a limp (figuratively speaking).

I too tread lightly for I have sinned against God and against those in my trust. I too walk with a limp because I know how easily the enemy entangles and ensnares. It was for us that Jesus came into this world so that we may have hope.

My friend Danilo always says that we're all a mess.  We are but, and this is important, we are striving unto the prize. We don't sin more that grace may abound, but we recognize our sinful nature and struggle against it every waking moment. We are constantly being transformed through the renewing of our minds. The biggest part of that transformation is when God puts love in our hearts for the unlovable. That is the essence of compassion.