God is more intereseted in your wrong believing than He is your poor behavior. Now a statement like that will automatically put you on the wrong side of someone who is religious and legalistic. Works oriented, performance based christianity will take huge exception to that statement.
However, here's the truth. God is not working on your behavior. He’s working on your identity. God does not look at you and see you in the past or present. He doesn’t view you with all your faults and failures. He sees you in your perfection. We just went through all of that in the blog "How Do You See Me Now"? He knew you before He created the universe and still He saved you by His grace and gave you a royal seat in the heavenly places.
God does not judge you nor shun you. He’s not keeping score. Let me say it again, God is more concerned with your wrong believing than he is your poor behavior. He is not anxious about anything regarding you. Just look at these examples.
King David. He was a murderer and an adulterer. You can study that in 2 Samuel 11. You would think that would put him outside the favor of God, but scripture says David was a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22). The first human name mentioned in the new testament in Matt 1:1 is David’s name. Now I know Jesus’ name is there, but I mean man born of woman in the natural sense, not the supernatural. Not only is his name the first mentioned, but the scripture connects Jesus to David by calling Him the son of David. Yet there were 28 generations between David and Jesus’ birth.
The last name you find in the new testament in the book of Revelation 22:16 is David. Jesus even calls himself the root and the offspring of David. David had very poor behavior, but he had right believing. The evidence of that is in Psalms 51.
Now lets look at Abraham. He was a murderer and a polytheist. Yet he believed God. Romans 4:1-3 says he "believed" God. Poor behavior, but right believing. If you have studied the bible at all, you know we are referred to as heirs and joint heirs with Abraham. Galatians 3:29 is just one of those scriptures. There are many more.
Now to my favorite person in the bible, Saul of Tarsus who was later named Paul the Apostle. Killing Jews. A Pharisee of Pharisees. Then he has a grace encounter on the road to Damascus and writes half the New Testament. Identifies and teaches the dispensation of grace with great power and determination. He definitely had poor behavior but right believing. My goal is to teach the grace message more radically than Paul and that's going to take some doing. I'll let you look up the scriptures to support this man's life. A clue would be to look in the book of Acts and then Romans to Philemon.
Now a couple groups of people. The Pharisees and prostitutes. Both these groups had poor behavior and wrong believing. Jesus put the Pharisees on one side of the room and the prostitutes on the other. Then he points to the prostitutes and tells the Pharisees that the prostitutes are closer to heaven than they are. Why? Because they both had poor behavior, but the Pharisees could not let go of their religious/legalistic beliefs. The prostitutes had no religious, legalistic, law abiding beliefs. They moved into right believing.
How about the woman at the well. Five husbands and living with a sixth. She went into town and preached a four word sermon “Come See A Man”, and many of the township believed. Poor behavior, but right believing.
Women caught in the very act of adultery. Poor behavior, but right believing.
Here’s others that you can study. Woman with issue of blood. Peter. Levi/Matthew, and Zaccheus.
What’s the point. God is more intereseted in your wrong believing than He is your poor behavior. So, if you think you’re the worst scoundrel in the Christian community, you qualify for God to use you. Grace and Peace.
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