Let me tell you the truth about myself before anyone else does. I am a good person today, but I need you to understand something. The only reason I can say that is because of Him. On my own, I'm not, and I never was. Without Christ, sin takes over, and it doesn't leave a good man standing. Anyone who knew me back then, my friends and the people I worked alongside for years, will tell you the same thing without hesitation. For a long stretch of my life, I ran from God as hard as I could, and I wasn't kind about it. I gossiped. I lied to others and to myself. And the whole time, I kept calling myself a Christian, wearing the name like it cost me nothing. Looking back, I can only describe it one way. I was spitting in the Lord's face and expecting Him to be grateful I showed up on Sunday.

That's the man God called. I need you to understand this, because it's the only reason this letter is worth reading.

Paul knew this feeling. He wrote,

"This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief." — 1 Timothy 1:15

Not just another sinner, the worst of the bunch. Then look at what he says next, because this is the part that breaks me every time. God saved him anyway,

"that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe." — 1 Timothy 1:16

God didn't use Paul despite how far gone he was. He used the depth of Paul's mess to display His patience. The worse the sinner, the louder the grace.

It was an afternoon in 2018, after church, when I finally stopped running. He didn't read me my record. He didn't list the gossip, the lies, or the wasted years. He asked me one thing. "Are you done running?" Then He said the words I never thought a holy God would say to a man like me: "I have called you, and I can use you." Not once you clean up. Not once you earn it. He called me with the dirt still under my fingernails.

And here is what I have to be honest about, because I won't sell you a finished man. I still stumble. Today. This week. I am not writing to you from some mountaintop where the struggle is behind me. I trip over the same things I always did, and there are days when I have to come back to Him ashamed all over again. If being used by God required me to finally become a good person, I would have been disqualified a thousand times by now, and I'd disqualify myself again before lunch.

But that's exactly the point I need you to take from a man who knows it firsthand. His grace is not a reward for the good. It is a gift for the failing.

"My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." — 2 Corinthians 12:9

Sufficient. Enough. Not enough only on my good days, but enough on the days I stumble, enough on the days I run, enough on the days I have nothing to offer Him but an apology. That is what we lean into. Not our goodness, because we don't have any that counts. His mercy, which never runs dry, no matter how many times we come back to the well.

So if you're still running because you think you have to be good first, stop. I'm not good yet, but He called me. You're not good, and He's calling you. Your goodness was never the qualification. It was always His grace. Are you done running?

Pastor Keith