This is the title of a classic book written by Brennan Manning, a self-described “vagabond evangelist”. The book is about grace, God’s grace. We are all ‘ragamuffins’ that God has extended His grace to. None of us are perfect, nor ever will be. We come before the throne of God in all our dirty rags. Be He accepts us anyway.
This has made me think a lot about what I am before God. I am a sinner, made a saint through the grace of God through my faith in Jesus Christ. I will never be perfect. At least not in this life. But God sees me as one of His saints. This is an amazing truth. You don’t need to be a theologian to understand something so wonderful. As in one of my favorite songs, all my sins, my mistakes, my failures before God and man, are as far as the east is from the west in the eyes of God.
Of course that does not give me license to continue to sin. I want to be closer to God. To walk with Jesus daily. To grow my faith on a daily basis. But I will always be a ‘ragamuffin’. Not deserving of God’s grace.
During my trip to Africa in 2005, I made a friend of a man who makes regular trips to that part of the world. I get frequent email updates from him. Here is a man who spends a lot of his time away from his wife and family in ministry to the people of the Central African Republic. Here is a man after God’s heart. God, give me that kind of faith. I close with an excerpt from his most recent update:
Do I really know what I have with the Person of Jesus Christ?
Is all He really wants is what I do for Him or could it be possible that He actually wants me?
Is my deep heart hungering more for Him as I age, really, or is He simply one part of my portfolio?
Do I really want to sit at His feet, to learn, to respond, to be with Him, or am I hiding behind busyness or some other cheap substitute that is seeking to murder my heart?
I am incomplete without Him.
I wasn’t meant to live the Christian life on my own.
He is passionate for relationship with me.
My great struggle is to simply believe and to respond fully with abandon to this irresistible possibility.
If I am to do so, it will be because of faith.
