The NIV 365 Day Devotional

How Can We, Imperfect People, Live the Way Jesus Wants Us to Live?

Jesus is never unsettled by our imperfections. Actually, he is most at ease and hopeful with those who are glaringly imperfect. He dined with hated tax collectors and “champion” sinners (see Mt 9:10). He offered grace to a woman caught in adultery (see Jn 8:3–11). His own disciples—the men he chose—were sometimes dull, fickle and unbelieving (see Mt 15:16; Mk 9:19; 14:66–72). Even in his last hour, as he hung on the cross, Jesus welcomed a criminal into the kingdom (see Lk 23:43).

It seems Jesus sees potential in our imperfection. When we are the most acutely aware of our weakness, we reach the end of our rope. Those who have run out of self-reliance are ready to rely on Jesus to give them new life.

But Jesus is frustrated by dishonesty. He reserved his sharpest words for the religious frauds who did not realize they were in desperate trouble. “It is not the healthy who need a doctor” (Mt 9:12), he told them. So an important step toward living the way Jesus intends is being brutally honest about our radical imperfections. Bringing our sins into his light by giving them a specific name—lust, anger, gossip, gluttony, greed and so on—makes it possible for us to experience deep-soul healing from the Great Physician (see 1Jn 1:8–9).

But the goal is not to merely admit our imperfections and offenses. The goal is to transform our sinful natures by the Spirit of God so that we become the kind of people in whom the life of Jesus is most vividly expressed. Because we are human, imperfections are inevitable. But through Jesus, what’s old can become new (see 2Co 5:17).

Taken from the NIV Starting Place Study Bible.