There’ll always be people who question our right or worthiness to be servants of God, ministers in the church or society. I don’t mean ministers in the sense of ordained ministers, but rather people witnessing to God’s goodness and grace. There’ll always be people who say things like sure he’s just a blow in. He’s not one of us and he’ll never be one of us. There’re others who will say sure it’s only him again. He always has something to say, he’s just another one of those religious nuts. Other things people might say are nobody listens to him, he’s not very clever, he’s the local clown, he’s the one everybody belittles or makes fun of.
Scripture teaches us that what qualifies us as servants of God and followers of Jesus is not the opinions of the people around us. If we’re to seek God’s will in our world then we’ll have to learn to not only deal with such accusations but to listen to what God says about us, to believe God and only God.
If we believe in a rule-based system, then these rules only serve to condemn us. They don’t show how good we’ve been, they only highlight our failures. Rules, or the law, can only condemn.
John tells us that it was because of God’s love that he sent his Son into the world not to condemn it but to save it through him. This salvation is not earned but freely given through faith in Jesus Christ… ‘that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’ (John 3:16)