There are numerous people through the Bible that stand out as
examples. Many of them did things that
made them failures, yet God’s grace made them winners in the end. Did you catch that? Even in bad decisions, in pain or in failure,
God still loves us and has a plan.
The same is true about Abraham. He was called the father of faith, and the
Bible numerous times says that His faith was counted as righteousness. At one paint he lied about Sarah being his
wife.
Romans 4:17 NLT
That is what
the Scriptures mean when God told him, “I have made you the father of many
nations.” This happened because Abraham
believed in the God who brings
the dead back to life and who creates new things out of nothing.
David was anointed king at a strange time. His family wasn’t right. He was too young. There was another man who was king, and he
had sons how would naturally become king.
That wasn’t God’s plan. He slept
with a lady who wasn’t his wife, and then David had that lady’s husband
killed. It even gets deeper, but God
loved and elevated David.
Acts 13:22 NLT
But God removed Saul and replaced him with
David, a man about whom God
said, ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart.
He will do everything I want him to do.’
One of the most righteous people in the Bible was Job. He has possessions and position, but his life
went in an awful direction as he lost his children and almost all he had. He even lost his health. Job didn’t do anything wrong, but everyone
around him caved.
Job 2:9-10 NLT
His wife said
to him, “Are you still trying to maintain your integrity? Curse God and die.” But Job replied, “You talk like a foolish
woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never
anything bad?” So in all this, Job said nothing wrong.
Peter was one of the first people to follow Jesus, and he was
also in the closest group to Jesus all through the time of Jesus’
ministry. He was the one preaching when
the Holy Spirit came to earth, but Peter was also the man who denied Jesus
three times before Jesus died. He was
also the only disciple Jesus directly called by the name Satan.
Acts 2:40 NLT
Then Peter continued preaching for a long
time, strongly urging all his
listeners, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation!”
We have all kinds of people that we idolize. Some of those are athletes while others are
holiday actors or music business successes.
God desires for us to find people to follow who lead us to Him.
I heard a phrase yesterday that has stuck in my mind. We are to be “arrows of light” that point the
people around us, including ourselves, to the true light. Who is it that you want to be like?
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