The Imperfect Disciple: Grace for People Who Can't Get Their Act Together

by Jared C. Wilson

“Without faith it is impossible to please God,” Hebrews 11:6

Our faith could even be as small as a mustard seed, but so long as it’s genuine it will still afford us the totality of Christ’s eternal riches.

The more into his grace we rest, the more from his grace we will become gentle.

I have heard that the definition of maturity is the ability to delay gratification.

The more we walk with Christ and the more we are led by the Spirit, the less satisfying we find the world

The good news is that it is God who keeps us from failing; God ensures that we will stand before him blameless (Jude 24). This means that, no matter how you feel, if you are a follower of Jesus you are never truly stuck.

Behavior problems are belief problems. Who or what you believe yourself to be will direct how you live.

but it’s also dangerous to dwell in that imaginary world, because when our joy is placed anywhere but in Christ, we are setting ourselves up for incredible, crushing disappointment and spiritual and emotional disaster.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is our only hope and security of enduring approval, of eternal validation, of spiritual fulfillment, of eternal joy.

The real you is the you who comes out in times of trouble. As Charles Spurgeon said, “Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil, and let us see what we are made of.”

In and through the gospel we know that all of the things we actually long for can only be found in God.

His Son, Jesus, is the apex and sum of all that is good and lovely and wonderful. To get lost in him is to finally find one’s true self.

We bring nothing to this relationship except our nothingness.

So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor. 12:1–10)

For Paul, less of himself is a good thing, because it means more of Jesus.

Grace is all-sufficient for weakness.

There is more security, in fact, with Christ in the middle of a stormy sea than without Christ in the warm stillness of our bathtub.

God was not trying to convince Moses that Moses was strong enough for the job. He was telling Moses that God himself was strong enough for the job.

Our weakness is no hindrance to God. In fact, he seems to prefer it! If only because the less of us there is, the more of him shines through, and the more glory he gets.

Don’t be afraid of your weakness. It’s the only thing God will work with! And the weaker you are, the stronger you will discover ...

Grace is Jesus.

Grace is the grace of Jesus.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams,

To practice followship of Jesus is to believe the descriptions.

Heaven is where we finally feel and experience—really, literally, tangibly—the love that is greater than our capacity to love and to even think about love.

He is the point of that world just as he is the point of this one. If we do not follow the heavenly signposts of this world to the great face of our Lord Jesus Christ, we will miss out on both the joy of that world and the joys of this one.

Like Paul, we boldly claim to be the chief of sinners because we have the chief of Saviors.

The grace that sustains us in our weakness and suffering will deliver us to worlds unspeakable.

His grace is all-sufficient for weakness, for suffering, and for glory.

Faith is most needed there, down on the floor under that table.

Jesus is mediating for you and the Spirit is interceding for you, making up for all your prayerlessness.

You are not your past.