Imperfect People

This, then, is the family line of Perez:

Perez was the father of Hezron,

Hezron the father of Ram,

Ram the father of Amminadab,

Amminadab the father of Nahshon,

Nahshon the father of Salmon, Salmon the father of Boaz,

Boaz the father of Obed,

Obed the father of Jesse,

and Jesse the father of David.

-Ruth 4:18-22 

I have begun to read through the chapters of the Old Testament. No rhyme or reason to it, not in chronological order, but just whatever chapter God lays on my heart at the time. I took about 4-5 months to slowly devour the book of Psalms then jumped over to the book of Esther and now I have been reading through the Book of Ruth. 

At the very end of Ruth it lists the lineage of Jesus as is shown above in verses 18-22. Now all throughout the Old Testament you find so many chapters of genealogy verses. Now to be honest, in the past these have been verses that I have skipped over, thinking they were irrelevant and unnecessary to any sort of spiritual growth. But I want to point out something extremely important here: God used imperfect, messed up, ordinary, everyday people to birth our Savior, Jesus. 

Jesus was not born from a long line of "purebred" Jewish people, if you will. He has a history of wicked men and women born of other countries. I am not here to say that our Lord in any way has a wicked bone in His body, but in fact it goes to show that He came fully human to become completely relatable, family heritage and all, to us and everything we go through, have experienced or grew up in.

 
This lineage starts with Perez and Perez was the child of Judah and Tamar, Tamar was his daughter in law who acted as a prostitute in order to get her father in laws promise he had once given her (See Gen. 38). Skip down a bit and Salmon was the father of Boaz and his mother was Rahab the prostitute that helped the Israelites defeat the city of Jericho.  Boaz was married to Ruth, which many of you might be familiar with, but she was not an Israelite, in fact she was an impoverished widow from Moab who took it  upon herself to do whatever was necessary for her and her mother in law to survive. God honored her courage and conviction and blessed her by restoring to her and to Naomi adding them into the family lineage of Jesus. You can see the rest, their son Obed led to King David and he is an ancestor of Jesus Christ and the rest is history!

Imperfect people that allow themselves to surrender to God's perfect will, will yield an enormous blessing, not only in their lives, but in their children and grandchildren as well. 

This takes an enormous amount of pressure off of me to get it all right. I can strive for God's will in my life, but I will make mistakes and detours sometimes. But even so, as long as my heart and motives stay in the right place, God sees that and will honor that and helps re-route my internal GPS, so to speak. Don't ever believe your failures or fears define who you are. God can use that right where you are to give Him glory. And isn't that what this is all about anyways?

We are all clay pots with cracks and chips, but through those cracks, God's glory and provision can shine through. Surrender to Him and let God mold you into something new. Don't ever be discouraged, that is a lie from the enemy. Pick yourself back up, shake off the dust and fix your eyes on Jesus. After all He is in our royal bloodline, we have a new lineage ourselves in Jesus Christ! 

 The song lyrics to Dara Maclean's "Blameless" could not be more fitting for this week's blog:

Now blameless, You call me Holy
I’ve been forgiven, You call me righteous and free
Now spotless, You call me worthy
I am Your child, You call me chosen
I’m Yours, I am Yours

It reminds me of what Ruth says to Naomi in Ruth 1:16:
"Where you go I will go, 
where you stay I will stay, Your people
will be my people and your God my God." 

Ruth was saying not only to Naomi but to the Lord, I am yours now, I am your child.