Unreal Expectations

I woke up this morning with a very weird thought: "Can you imagine if you could only be accepted to a health club if you met the following criteria - you were completely healthy, with low body-fat, a muscular frame and no injuries or disease?" I immediately thought, "If you met this criteria, you don't need to join the health club!"

I have no idea why I was thinking about this. I don't know what my dream was. I did wake up thinking about my message for this coming Sunday, and as I was going over the Scripture in my mind (John 9:13-23) I thought about how the Jews and Pharisees had created a criteria to be accepted into the synagogue (the church). Have we done the same thing? Do we expect people to live up to unreal expectations of perfection in order for them to join our group, our church, even the Kingdom of God?

Let me state this plainly... if you meet the criteria of perfection, you don't need Jesus! In fact, the offense of the Gospel is that spiritually, you are unhealthy, injured by your past and diseased with the sin in your life. You need Jesus! I beg you, don't have unreal expectations for people to join our group or our church or the Kingdom. Let's love imperfect people into the Kingdom of God - I wouldn't be here if someone didn't do that for me.