Are You Sure You're Perfect?

What if I was sick and never admitted it, and instead made fun of the people who were sick? That sounds crazy right? Well that’s how the Pharisees were. They liked to walk around town and act like they were “all that”, and Jesus shows them that they aren’t. I was reading Matthew 9 the other day and I stumbled along this verse “it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick” Mathew 12. And first looking at that we can say, “Well yeah I knew that” but a closer look tells us more. In the scene Jesus is eating with all the “sinners”, and is being mocked for it by the Pharisees. And Jesus tells them that verse. Now in this verse Jesus is calling them out. Jesus (God) is saying He has no time for perfect people, and why? Because they don’t exist, there is not a person on earth without sin, and to say you are perfect is to lie and be proud. God doesn’t want proud people, He wants humble ones. He wants a broken spirit, a person who is willing to admit their failure and ask for forgiveness. Jesus would have been friends with the Pharisees if they stopped judging others and took a look at themselves, and asked for forgiveness. The church is a hospital for sinners not a health club for saints. People shouldn’t go to church thinking “Oh, I gotta be perfect to come here”, they should think “Well I’m a sinner; I understand that I sin and need help from God, and I’m going to ask for His forgiveness.” God doesn’t want us to be proud and not admit our sin; He wants us to come to Him and seek His mercy. Jesus wasn’t calling the Pharisees perfect, He was calling them proud, and He showed them what they really are: sinners like everyone else. We are all sinners, and God can only use us if we acknowledge that.